An abundance of Katherines: The game theory of baby naming

Meta-joke and paper context

• Commenters note the author list is itself a joke: all first names are variants of the same root name.
• The title is recognized as a nod to a well-known young-adult novel.
• Several people point out it’s a SIGBOVIK / April Fools–style piece, so the over-the-top “perfect” model and assumptions are intended as parody.

Humor and favorite bits

• Many highlight the “Extremely Reasonable Assumptions,” especially the single-gender world and the “Mayfly Parenthood” assumption where parents die after naming the child.
• Others enjoy the recursive self-citation about how parents mistakenly think “Kate” will be unique, and the acknowledgement of a non-author whose name doesn’t fit a regex.
• Visual jokes like dinosaur- and squid-shaped plots and a cropped ChatGPT prompt are praised.

Related work and nominative determinism

• Commenters link to real research on implicit egotism, name–career correlations, and nominative determinism (e.g., doctors whose surnames match their specialties).
• Other humorous name-themed papers and joke articles are cited for comparison.

Naming patterns, culture, and identity

• Discussion covers how immigrants choosing English names often prefer common, “fitting in” options, sometimes decades out of date.
• Trans communities are mentioned as another context where many independently converge on the same few names.
• Some argue family names can be more or less differentiated depending on country and history.

Baby-naming strategies and trends

• Parents describe deliberately using popularity data to avoid overly common names, while others report accidentally landing in popularity spikes.
• There is debate over “boring” vs. unique names, “creative” spellings, and naming after historical or religious figures.
• Several note cyclical trends: once-trendy names become dated markers of age, then may be revived by later generations.

Data, tools, and skepticism

• Commenters reference official baby-name datasets, visualization tools, and random-name generators.
• At least one person calls the model assumptions “bollocks,” while others emphasize the paper is meant as dry humor rather than serious theory.