For people unfamiliar with common English names, all of the authors have first names similar to or derived from Katherine.
> For instance, a parent might anticipate the name “Kate” would be a pleasantly traditional yet unique name with only moderate popularity. They would be wrong [6].
Reference 6 is the paper.
> Simon Shindler contributed significantly to the aesthetic of Figure 7, but could not be named an author for obvious reasons.
What are these "obvious reasons"?
/^[KC]at(h?ie|e|h?y|h?erine)$/https://nameberry.com/list/16/catherinekatherines-internatio...
vowel 0: E, Ye, Je, Ai. Optional and rare; Ai in particular is very rare.
consonant 1: C, K, G, Q. Mandatory; G and Q are rare.
vowel 1: a, aa, ai; optional h or gh. Mandatory. A few shortened forms use i instead.
consonant 2: t, tt, d. Almost mandatory, but a few r-centric variants lack it. There also seem to be a few
vowel 2: a, e. Optional, only valid if consonant 2 exists. In shortened forms, also i, ie, or y; this is the end.
consonant 3: r, l. Optional. Sometimes L starts a new word instead.
vowel 3: i, y, ee, ie, ii, e if no consonant 2, plus several rare vowel sequences. Almost mandatory (assuming consonant 3), but a few rare variants pack the r right next to the n.
consonant 4: n, nn, nh. Optional.
vowel 4: e, a, ey. Optional; ey is rare.
Some languages shove an s, c, x, t, k somewhere too (some of these are probably language-specific diminutives, but a few might be phoneme drift instead) ...
"Kaylee" and its variant "Kayla" should probably not be counted (despite almost fitting the pattern) since that's a compound of "Kay", adding the additional "Leigh" name.
I understand that many people from east asia have a given name in their native language and an english sounding name that they often choose themselves.
If those three authors did chose their english names, then they too fall into the same category of parents who chose a variation of Katherine.
I’ve also met some folks who had English names that phonetically sounded similar to their original names. I wonder if there’s an east Asian first name that sounds like any of the versions of Katherine.
English people choosing English baby names often want them to be relatively unique or stand out in some way. At the very least, they don't want them to be _overly_ common.
Manny people I've talked to that have chosen a name after immigrating are kind of aiming for the opposite. They want to fit in. They already feel that they stand out, and generally try and minimize that.
There's also the fact that for some groups, they're choosing the name at a time when they may not be very familiar with English names or culture, and may not have much in the way of local resources they can or feel comfortable with drawing on, so the main indication they have that they haven't chosen some absurd name is "hey, lots of people here are named that".
A Few Goodmen: Surname-Sharing Economist Authors, by Goodman, Goodman, Goodman, and Goodman https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/joshuagoodman/files/goodma...
(Para)bosons, (para)fermions, quons and other beasts in the menagerie of particle statistics, by O.W. Greenberg, D.M Greenberger, T.V. Greenbergest https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/9306225 [Wally Greenberg told me that T.V. stands for 'the very']
Also note that TFA is a 1 April posting.
• Why Susie sells seashells by the seashore: implicit egotism and major life decisions (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11999918/)
With follow-ups:
• I sell seashells by the seashore and my name is Jack: comment on Pelham, Mirenberg, and Jones (2002) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14599244/)
• Assessing the validity of implicit egotism: a reply to Gallucci (2003) (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14599245/)
C. Limb, R. Limb, C. Limb, D. Limb "Nominative determinism in hospital medicine: Can our surnames influence our choice of career, and even specialty?"
https://publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.1308/147363515X14...
> Last night, February 3rd 2011, saw 100 students and fellows all sharing the name of Tom, gather together in a record-breaking charity event in Sidney Sussex dining hall. [...] For £20, Cambridge students with the name "Tom, Thomas, Tommy (or another legitimate variation)" were able to attend a black-tie, three-course formal dinner
For example, Gwyneth Paltrow's daughter is Apple Blythe Alison Martin, and she's stuck with it, being Apple Martin professionally— but it's good she had the off-ramp to be the much more conventional Blythe or Alison if she'd wanted it.
(btw, my son attended the same preschool as Paltrow's kids: just a coincidence worth mentioning.)
Now Ashley is 35 and pushing little Kaylee in the pram, or maybe she’s a business executive — either way, our perception has shifted that “Ashley” is now a woman not a girl. Just like how Gertrude, Beatrice, and Florence are more likely to be playing dolls at the park than bridge at the nursing home.
I wonder how all of these people met and decided to collaborate on this paper.
ie ... this is bollocks.
The USA has a wide variety, but there are also places like Vietnam where only a handful of family names are in common use and more than 30% of people are Nguyens.