What’s in a name? More than you think.
A new study that looked at children’s behavior was able to find out the names most likely to be associated with good or bad behavior, Mother and Baby UK reports. That’s right: We now have some evidence of naughtiest and nicest kids names.
So what names made the “nice” list? You can rest easy if your daughter’s name is Amy, Emma, Grace or Sophie – just to name a few. But if you’ve got a little Ella, Olivia or Caitlin in the house? Well, she might have a bit more work to do if she wants to make it onto Santa’s nice list by Christmas.
As for the boys, nice guys seem to go by names like Jacob, Thomas, James and Harry. Naughty-listers include Jake, Benjamin and Luke.
The poll was done by the website School Stickers and studied 63,000 school-age children whose behavior was tracked in online sticker books, reports say. That’s how they came up with the top 20 “naughty” and “nice” names – though not everyone is so convinced the findings mean anything.
In a post by Mamamia about the story, most users tagged friends and teased each other about the list, but some pointed out that the results don’t apply to their kids.
“Couldn’t be further from the truth,” one reader commented on the related Mamamia Facebook post.
Before you decide where you stand on the lighthearted study, check out the full list of names.
Nice girls
- Amy
- Georgia
- Emma
- Charlotte
- Grace
- Sophie
- Abigail
- Hannah
- Emily
- Alice
Nice boys
- Jacob
- Daniel
- Thomas
- James
- Adam
- Harry
- Samuel
- Jack
- Oliver
- Ryan
Naughty girls
- Ella
- Bethany
- Eleanor
- Olivia
- Laura
- Holly
- Courtney
- Amber
- Caitlin
- Jade
Naughty boys
- Joseph
- Cameron
- William
- Jake
- Joshua
- Jamie
- Lewis
- Benjamin
- Ethan
- Luke
If you’re wondering who’s behind the study, School Stickers sells supplies for preschool through high school students, including items for parents and teachers.
They offer a wide variety of sticker charts, which are a common tool for tracking and rewarding kids’ behavior – applicable, of course, for kids of any name.
What do you think of the results of this study on naughtiest and nicest kids names? Tell us in the comments!
