Seven Costanza?

This week they had the Seinfeld rerun where George comes up with the name "Seven" for his and Susan's future child. Susan's cousin and her husband were having dinner with George and Susan. During dinner they discuss the baby and possible names. George suggested the name "Soda" which they both didn't like at all. While Susan and George were driving back from dinner, George told Susan of his ideal name for their future child - "Seven" (Mickey Mantle's number). Susan hated the name, and later told her cousin of this argument they had over this name. The cousin and her husband actually loved the name "Seven", and decided to use it for their new baby. When George heard they were stealing his name, he got furious. George insisted that it has "cachet", but Susan disagreed. Then George angrily responded:

Oh its got cachet baby! Its got cachet up the ying yang!

Interestingly, both the name "Soda" and "Seven" meet my 4 rules for baby names. However, as I mentioned last week, both names are probably a little too odd for a name. Also interesting about this episode is that the cousin's husband name is "Ken".

Price Rounding

One of these days, I would like to see a gas station that rounds their prices to the nearest cent. It's amazing that all gas stations have 9/10th of a cent added to their price. Does it really create the illusion that the price is 1 cent cheaper? Let's say you use 600 gallons of gas per year. The amount that you save from not rounding is 60 cents for the entire year. If gas is one cent more costly, it would add up to just $6 a year. Even though I'm pretty careful with my spending, I'm not going make a special trip to a gas station in a less convenient location to save just a penny a gallon.

Vacation to Las Vegas, Gambling, and the Lottery

I'll be taking a vacation starting next Saturday to Las Vegas with my brother. Although I'm not into gambling, there are a lot of other things I look forward to such as the amazing hotels, Hoover Dam, and the Grand Canyon. But one interesting thing to me is the psychology of gambling. It's clearly a powerful force that has built the gambling meca of Las Vegas.

I just heard a fact this morning that 48 of the 50 states now have state lotteries. Seems like the most successful lotteries are the ones that have the biggest jackpot. Every time the jackpot gets big, it gets free publicity on the news. The bigger the prize, the more time the news spend on it.

Here's my suggestion for playing the lottery. Before the drawing, just pick the numbers and write them down. Write down as many picks as you want. But don't buy any tickets. Then when the numbers come out, see if any of your numbers are winners. For each wrong pick, award yourself $1 (assuming a ticket costs $1). For each winning pick, subtract from your "winnings" the price of the winner. Most likely you might have to subtract a few dollars for when you get 3 of 6 right. Perhaps you'll have to subtract around a hundred dollars for 4 of 6. Keep doing this for a year, and I bet you'll find that you are coming out ahead. Of course, there's a tiny chance you'll lose big if one day you get all 6 numbers. But I bet that never happens.

posted by Ken on 2:30 PM permalink and comments  

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Sunday, May 04, 2003

 

My Baby Naming Rules

A co-worker became a father this week, and this got me thinking about what makes a good baby name. I've put together a list of four attributes for a "good" name.

1. Fairly unique - Names are suppose to identify a person. If a name is shared with too many others, the name loses its usefulness as an identifier. Confusion results. This is a somewhat qualitative rule that can change over time. Some examples of overly common names that I don't think there would be argument over include "John", "George", and "Jim".
2. Two syllables - Unlike the last one, this is a very quantitative rule. A two syllable name has the advantage over a one syllable name in being able to be heard more easily. If there's a cough while the name is said, it's less likely to mask the entire name. Based on this, some may ponder a three or more syllable name. But then it gets too long and cumbersome.
3. Can't easily be abbreviated - This is also another reason why names shouldn't be more then two syllables. Three or more syllable names are more likely to be abbreviated into a one syllable name. When this happens, the advantage of having a multiple syllable name is wasted. Also, confusion exists throughout the person's life. When should you use your unabbreviated name versus your nick name?
4. Straightforward spelling - This is a relitively new rule for my list that another co-worker mentioned to me. She experienced the importance of this rule with her son. When you tell someone your name, you want his first assumption about its spelling to be right.

What would be examples of good names? Let's take the Seinfeld characters as a case study.

First, take the name Jerry. I'm not sure if this totally meets my first rule. However, it's no "John". On my second rule, it passes. It also would pass my third rule unless of course his real name (character or actual real name) is "Gerald" or something like that. Finally, it passes my fourth rule with a pretty generally accepted spelling. So this name makes a good name.

The name "Elaine" also does a pretty good job at the four rules. Same with "Kramer". However, I guess "Kramer" is actually the character's last name. His first name was "Cozmo". Is "Cozmo" a good name? If a name is too unusual, the person may feel compelled to be called by something else. So "Cozmo" is probably a little too unusual. The same goes with George's favorite name of "Seven". This would probably be too unusal for a name. So even though "Seven" passes my four rules, it probably wouldn't make for a good name due to its oddity for a name. I probably need to add this as my fifth rule...

The only definitely bad name on Seinfeld is "George". This fails the first two of my rule. On the other hand, his real name of "Jason" holds up pretty well against my rules.

posted by Ken on 12:20 PM permalink and comments  

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