Interesting data for the first 662 names added to the list.

TOTAL LETTER FREQUENCIES

This table shows how many times each letter has been used - overall. The second column shows which letter fits the relevant position in a study of British English overall.

Position English Megazine Frequency
1
E
E
1262
2
T
T
781
3
A
A
755
4
I
I
717
5
N
O
691
6
O
N
630
7
S
R
629
8
R
S
584
9
L
L
552
10
D
H
491
11
H
D
386
12
C
C
339
13
U
P
311
14
M
U
290
15
F
M
268
16
P
F
240
17
Y
G
238
18
G
B
219
19
W
Y
211
20
V
K
127
21
B
W
120
22
K
V
93
23
X
Z
45
24
J
J
38
25
Q
X
29
26
Z
Q
18

Fair enough; there are no mind-blowing oddities between the 'real' data and the Mega-zine data. It's all just a matter of interest.

Furthermore, here's a graph to illustrate:



OTHER NAME LENGTH FACTS

The following table is one for GCSE Mathematicians nationwide. A practical use for standard deviation - the thing that shows how much difference there is between the mean thing and the things that are at the other end of... the range... thing. Hmm.

Well, here we go. Mean name length is given for each letter. For example, the mean name length for names that begin with A is 17.142857143 (or, in other words, 17 characters). The standard deviation is also given for each letter. In real world terms, this represents... something.

Letter Mean Length Standard Deviation
A
17.142857143
 7.0841283126
B
16.625000000
 6.9826975100
C
16.076923077
 7.0426692584
D
15.828571429
 6.8448594464
E
15.000000000
 6.0764362025
F
16.142857143
 5.1690982501
G
16.062500000
 8.1769493089
H
15.052631579
 4.4155493456
I
14.800000000
 3.2930904094
J
13.687500000
 6.9734615986
K
17.400000000
 9.1917837708
L
17.387096774
 6.8150686930
M
16.021276596
 7.0756451901
N
18.000000000
 7.5340496920
O
15.222222222
 13.1127588420
P
16.552631579
 7.5826878513
Q
18.142857143
 6.8417485930
R
10.500000000
 2.5495097568
S
17.041095890
 7.0738924460
T
21.152173913
 7.0482199170
U
18.333333333
 6.8534441684
V
14.875000000
 5.8660646336
W
18.500000000
 7.9756574093
X
26.000000000
 7.0710678119
Y
16.000000000
 9.6436507610
Z
14.250000000
 6.9462219947

So, O has a huge standard deviation, while R has the smallest. Strange. Many of the mean lengths are similar - X wins because there was just one, long name in these first 662 entries - ruining the data, so to speak.

Another illustrative graph for you:



Some more name length facts to dwell on...

The Overall Mean Length is: 16.607558762 characters
The Overall Standard Deviation is: 8.6444639108

The Mean Standard Deviation across all letters is: 6.9707850451

The Standard Deviation of the Means is: 2.7432260134

The Standard Deviation of Standard Deviations is: 1.9794225056

There are 10, 064 characters in the first 662 names in total.

No frame? Click here.