Business Insider reports that a study this year indicates people with nick names or shorter names tend to earn more money than people who go by longer names.
From the story:
“From an analysis of nearly 6 million names, the study found that every extra letter in a person’s name tended to correlate with a $3,600 drop in annual salary.”
3 Questions That Arise From This Story
1. Is this why Mr. T was so popular in the 1980s? He used a mere three letters for his first and last name, so we bet he pities the lesser-earning-fools named Laurence (which incidentally is his real first name if we are to trust Wikipedia).
2. Is this the real reason British authors J.K. Rowling and E.L. James are raking it in, despite a major difference in quality between the Harry Potter and Fifty Shades of Grey series? If so, kudos to E.L. James for using a pen name with so few letters to make more money! Although too bad you didn’t use less letters in your books! (Preferably 75,000 less letters.)
3. Will this news result in shortening your name? If so, feel free to post your new name in the comments section below! Although if your first name is “Firemen,” we suggest you think twice before changing it to “Fire Me!”*
*especially if you work at the Fire Station.
