Study on first names shows: “kevin” is half as bad

"Our statistics prove that there are many academics who have such stereotypical first names," rodriguez told the weekly newspaper. The scientist had evaluated the names of many former students at the university of leipzig for the study. Among them were 380 peggys, 217 ronnys and 379 mandys alone.

The research was prompted by a number of studies that had attracted attention in recent years. They had shown that primary school teachers, for example, believed that children with names like kevin or mandy were less likely to perform well. Kevin is not a name, but a diagnosis, as one elementary school teacher had written.

The reason for such prejudices is "social class arrogance", said the oldenburg educationalist astrid kaiser to the "zeit". English names have been a trend of the middle class – especially in the east, partly also in west germany. "Then people from the lower classes began to imitate these names."The eastern and lower class phenomena had become mixed up in the public consciousness, explained the expert.

The fact that many children in the new countries were named mandy or peggy is also due to political reasons: "parents are looking for names that come from the country of their dreams," explained the researcher from oldenburg. Before the fall of the wall, many east germans longed for the west, especially the usa, and accordingly more often called their children robby or sandy. West germans had worshipped strong scandinavia since the 60s. Your children hove about jan or soren.