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Criminals: New Way to Blame your Parents

"Adolescents with unpopular names more prone to committing crime

Shippensburg, PA – January 28, 2009 – A new study in the journal Social Science Quarterly examined the relationship between first name popularity in adolescents and tendency to commit crime. Results show that, regardless of race, juveniles with unpopular names are more likely to engage in criminal activity.

David E. Kalist and Daniel Y. Lee of Shippensburg University analyzed state data by comparing the first names of male juvenile delinquents to the first names of male juveniles in the population.

Researchers constructed a popularity-name index (PNI) for each name. For example, the PNI for Michael is 100, the most frequently given name during the period. The PNI for David is 50, a name given half as frequently as Michael. The PNI is approximately 1 for names such as Alec, Ernest, Ivan, Kareem, and Malcolm.

The least popular names were associated with juvenile delinquency among both blacks and whites. While the names are likely not the cause of crime, they are connected to factors that increase the tendency to commit crime, such as a disadvantaged home environment, residence in a county with low socioeconomic status, and households run by one parent.

Also, adolescents with unpopular names may be more prone to crime because they are treated differently by their peers, making it more difficult for them to form relationships. Juveniles with unpopular names may also act out because they consciously or unconsciously dislike their names."

...

I'm totally changing my name to Ivan VonCrompsin and embracing my criminal career.

This is the part I like most

Quote:

While the names are likely not the cause of crime, they are connected to factors that increase the tendency to commit crime, such as a disadvantaged home environment, residence in a county with low socioeconomic status, and households run by one parent.

How many rich parents name their kids with "unique" names.. quite a few that I know of.. I don't put much stock into this study.

If it does turn out to be true however, my daughter is going to spend her life in prison. She has a russian name, and my last name is a mix of russian/german...

so her PNI is like -100,000

I don't think a name has anything to do with relationships and friendships.. you either have a personality and you're social or you're not.

This seems to be an odd way to conduct a study. Maybe, maybe they can state that they've found a correlative link, but causal? I see nothing in the article establishing a causal relationship between commonality of a name and criminality, just a guess about how children treat other children with supposedly odd names.

BTW, google these names:
Michael Bear Carson
Michael Hughes
Michael Bruce Ross
Michael Swango

What about last names?

Manson? Hitler? Simpson?

Hmm... I need more silly studies like this.

How about the child in PA whose parents named him Adolf Hitler Campbell?

Quote:

EASTON, Pa. (WABC) -- Three-year-old Adolph Hitler Campbell is cute, cuddly and, for now, blissfully unaware of the shock value conveyed by his first and middle names. That may be changing, though.

The youngster was at the center of a recent dispute between his parents and a local supermarket that refused to spell out his name on a cake for his birthday party last weekend. A story in a local newspaper prompted an outpouring of angry online responses directed at Heath Campbell, 35, and his wife Deborah, 25.

"I think people need to take their heads out of the cloud they've been in and start focusing on the future and not on the past," Heath Campbell said Tuesday in an interview conducted on the other side of the Delaware River from where the family lives in Hunterdon County, N.J.

"There's a new president and he says it's time for a change; well, then it's time for a change," he continued. "They need to accept a name. A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did."

Deborah Campbell said she phoned in her order last week to the ShopRite in Greenwich, just east of downtown Phillipsburg on the western edge of New Jersey. When she told the bakery department she wanted her son's name spelled out, she was told to talk to a supervisor, who denied the request.

Karen Meleta, a spokeswoman for ShopRite, said the Campbells had similar requests denied at the same store the last two years and said Heath Campbell previously had asked for a swastika to be included in the decoration.

"We reserve the right not to print anything on the cake that we deem to be inappropriate," Meleta said. "We considered this inappropriate."

But spokeswoman Karen Meleta told The Easton Express-Times for Sunday's editions that the Campbells' request was considered inappropriate.

The Campbells ultimately got their cake inscribed at a Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania, Deborah Campbell said. About 12 people attended the birthday party on Sunday, including several children who were of mixed race, according to Heath Campbell.

"If we're so racist, then why would I have them come into my home?" he asked.

The Campbells' other two children also have unusual names: JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell turns 2 in a few months and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell will be 1 in April.

Heath Campbell said he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because "no one else in the world would have that name." He sounded surprised by all the controversy the dispute had generated.

Campbell said his ancestors are German and that he has lived his entire life in Hunterdon County. On Tuesday he wore a pair of black boots he said were worn by a German soldier during World War II.

He said he was raised not to avoid people of other races but not to mix with them socially or romantically either. But he said he would try to raise his children differently.

"Say he grows up and hangs out with black people. That's fine, I don't really care," he said. "That's his choice."

Child named after Hitler is refused cake request - 12/17/08 - New York News and Tri-State News - 7online.com

bet he's not going to have any problems in life. :rolleyes: It's not his fault his parents are stupid and shouldn't be allowed to create life. Not only his name but seriously.. JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell?

This study seems to exist to create discussion.

I don't think names have anything to do with a person's personality or their likelihood to commit a crime.

Naming your child Adolf isn't crazy. Asking for the kid's middle name on a birthday cake is just a bad idea. I think those parents just want attention. There are some foolish people out there, and unfortunately they can reproduce just as easily as the rest.

I am a social scientist (sociologist), so here's a few things to keep in mind:
- Journalists do a dreadful job of reporting on scientific papers, specially in the social sciences. In order to attract readers they often make it sound as if the research is claiming that X factor is a leading cause of something, instead of being one of a myriad of factors.

- Social Science Quarterly is far from being a top journal.

In any case, the paper, which is quite honestly technically average but nearly irrelevant, is less about crime and more about naming conventions.

From the article's conclusion:
"We show that unpopular names are associated with juveniles who live in
nontraditional households, such as female-headed households or households
without two parents. In addition, juvenile delinquents with unpopular
names are more likely to reside in counties with lower socioeconomic status."

I.e., it is not that having an unusual name leads you to commit crime. Is that, statistically, less common names are often found within the poor and low status. Not that only poor people have unusual names, or that rich people dont, but that, statistically, unusual names are often found within lower income populations, and within lower income populations people with uncommon names tend to be slightly more likely to have been convicted of something.

But just to throw some numbers around, so you get the idea.
- the study found that an increase of 1% in the PNI index is correlated with a reduction of 0.367% in the proportion of people of that name that are delinquents.
- a 1 point increase in a county's average PNI corresponds to a 0.0018 decrease in unemployment.

That is the argument is somewhat like this: there is a very small but statistically significant effect of the commonality of the first name on delinquency. This is also related to a small but statistically significant correlation between commonality of first name and socio-economic status. The authors think that one of the reasons that might happen is this: because certain unusual names are found more often among poor populations, people end up negatively associating such names with poverty and so on. That in turn decreases employment chances and so on, which in turn leads to more crime. The effect of each of these things on the next is incredibly small, but statistically significant.

The thing is, that is how science works. There are enough people out there doing science that everyone ends up specializing in the most precise fields. If the paper is right in its assertions, the effects would still be small enough that one person would not be able to really parse out these effects through daily observation anyways. It is a very small effect that would only be "visible" when looking at large samples. Boring, I know, but that is how science is done. We basically know the things that matter a lot, now they are just looking at the things that matter a little. Journalists often blow things out of proportion, to make things a bigger deal than they are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by guccilvr

...."They need to accept a name. A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did."....

I wish he would have said, "He's not gonna grow up to be Hitler!!!"

That would have made me LOL!! But alas, I agree, I think Lucifer is a pretty cool name until the romans gave iot to the devil!!!

I have noticed that a large number of criminals that I have read about and watched reports about on television through the years have the name, Wayne.

Quote:

Originally Posted by uncle phil (Post 2589246)

how about john wayne?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...nwaynegacy.jpg

I once read in News of the Weird that there are a shocking number of criminals middle-named Wayne. I don't think there's any sort of causal connection between a name and a propensity to commit crime, obviously, but I'm definitely weirded out if someone tells me their middle name is Wayne. ;-)

...Nevermind.

You shouldn't name your children stupid shit. Not only is it difficult for the child, but it's difficult for teachers! Some of the names I see in schools these days are ridiculous, and trying to make sense of all the silly spellings out there is tough.

Eh, whatever, I gave my daughter a unique name because it meant something special in the family lineage.. it's how I raise her and the ideals I instill in her that will determine if she's a criminal or not.

this is just another excuse for poor parenting and lack of social structure in the end IMO.

if the police are stopping people and then searching cars because of unique names, then that is just blatant discrimination.. not that cops are bad or anything :rolleyes: