[matthewmcg]

Author listing: Katy Blumer, Kate Donahue, Katie Fritz, Kate Ivanovich, Katherine Lee, Katie Luo, Cathy Meng, Katie Van Koevering

For people unfamiliar with common English names, all of the authors have first names similar to or derived from Katherine.

[dabiged]

The best bit: They recursively reference the paper to provide proof that too many parents choose the same common names:

> 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.

[martypitt]

Also good...

> Simon Shindler contributed significantly to the aesthetic of Figure 7, but could not be named an author for obvious reasons.

[devsda]

It goes beyond that. Three of the authors have east-asian last names.

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.

[srndsnd]

The title of the paper is also a reference to the famous YA novel "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green.

[evanb]

See also:

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.

[bonzini]

It's SIGBOVIK, so that's the kind of content you'd expect independent of the date.

[gattr]

On a related note:

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...

[slyall]

A few years ago there was KatieConf. Intended to highlight the lack of Women speakers at tech conferences

https://2019.katieconf.xyz/

[stordoff]

I'm reminded of the 'Tom Formal' that took place whilst I was at university:

> 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

https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/3192

[drewry]

Hah this reminds me of a site I built for April 1, 2019 http://www.mynamecon.com

[mbg721]

I saw an ad once for a convention of Bobs, with a keynote speech from Bob Newhart and the Jamaican bobsled team as special guests.

[Modified3019]

I began wondering if “Katerina” (often shortened to “Kat”) was related, the etymology I found here https://www.behindthename.com/name/katherine is interesting.

[mikepurvis]

I expect for a lot of parents naming a baby, the actual etymology is less important than whether the name sounds related/derived.

[xyst]

Glad to know I am not the only person to notice this :)

I wonder how all of these people met and decided to collaborate on this paper.

[gerdesj]

"we create a model which is not only tractable and clean, but also perfectly captures the real world. We then extend our investigation with numerical experiments, as well as analysis of large language model tools."

ie ... this is bollocks.

[ukuina]

I think that is the meta-joke.

[adolph]

Is it paradoxical that family names (used by a group of people) are more differentiated than personal names (used by one person)?

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I'd assume that this is more likely true in countries mostly populated by recent immigrants.

[Khoth]

Whether family names are more differentiated depends on where you live.

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.

[burnished]

I think that makes sense both from an organizational and cultural perspective. Context usually supplies whatever information is needed for personal names so less disambiguation is required, and they are used much more so some simplicity is useful/natural consequence of human nature. Family names are used less frequently and with less context and frankly is how people distinguish their group from others. So yeah, think it checks out.