Anybody care to know the most common first names of Liverpool’s criminals? Martin Rosenbaum, on his BBC News blog, has posted such a list, including types of offenses. Now all someone has to do is cross-index the most popular criminal names with the most popular names in general and break them out according to socioeconomic status, etc. As it now stands, it’s not much more than a curiosity — and a rather troubling one at that, considering that “Stephen” is No. 5 on the list (after James, Michael, John, and Paul, and followed by Anthony, David, Thomas, Lee, and Christopher). At least the typical Stephen was relatively less violent than the typical James; Stephen, it seems, prefers drugs.
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People called Steven, on the other hand, are more likely to commit violent rather than drug offences.
— martin rosenbaumSeems like a list of the most common men’s names to me.
— doncoffinAgreed, Don. Sounds to me like the names simply correlate with common names in general. An interesting list, but it doesn’t appear to be of any more value than a momentary entertainment. I’d be surprised if there’s anything worth discovering in such a list.
— SuperRobDo we have a list of “what proportion of people in Liverpool with these names commit crimes”. So all are very common, but is it the case that, like the star signs of the politicians, there’s another explanation…
— angelofthenorthI live in the South and we used to have a radio station with a morning program that featured the “Wayne, Lee, Ray Update.” These guys always reported on any criminal or suspect who made the news featuring Wayne, Lee, Ray or any combination of those in his name. It happened quite frequently and none of those are in the top baby names.
— xpuhas