What's up with Matts?

jbarnes112358 · Post by **jbarnes112358** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:25 pm

It seems like I always have one or more Matts on my team. In fact, most teams we play against have a Matt it seems. What's up with that? It can be confusing at times.

While on the subject of names so as not to totally waste this thread, why do so many players like using fake names at tournaments? Is this trend likely to continue, or will the fad sort of run its course and die? It seems that more and more people are no longer amused by them and just do them because they think they are supposed to. When I have multiple teams, I cannot follow them all, so I count on perusing the stats to get some indication on how people are doing. It is too much trouble for me to keep up with who is using what pseudonym. I much prefer just using Matt or whatever real name (with initial of last name in case of multiple Matts)

Matthew D · Post by **Matthew D** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:51 pm

I have noticed there seem to be more Matts around these days back when I was given this name there weren't many of us but it is a good ole biblical name
Personally, I wish that everyone would use their given name.. not something they wish they were named, makes it easy to know which person it actually is on the stats..

Zip Zap Rap Pants · Post by **Zip Zap Rap Pants** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:51 pm

Speaking of that this upcoming year we will have I think four Matts besides me, though two of them might not be extremely active. This past year the W&M CBI team had three Matts, all of whom lived together in a triple, and we basically recruited the best of them into the quizbowl club.

I think going with alternate name quartets that have academic significance is pretty clever, like how TJ used to go with characters from Samuel Beckett plays (which always come in fours). Also, it can make players pay less attention to their own individual stats, especially if outsiders can't figure out who's who (so there's less bragging). As my club's founder, co-prez, and main recruitment guy I consider myself a demi-coach, and as such I think it can be hypocritical of a coach to tell players "don't worry a lot about personal stats...but keep your original name at all times so I can keep track of personal stats." Besides one of my players complains about the official tournament stats always getting his numbers wrong, and sometimes rightfully so, so therefore I'm trying to make it a habit of keeping my own stats for the team anyway. This can be especially helpful if you have new and up-and-coming players who may or may not make that cut for the next team letter up. So for the SQBS stats I'm down with alternate names, partly because then players can later choose to boast about their numbers or not by telling the world through this board if it was them.

Besides, the world wouldn't be the same without the legends of Iceman, Rabbi, Goose, and Maverick...

wwellington · Post by **wwellington** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:07 pm

Also, it can make players pay less attention to their own individual stats

I don't really buy this argument...for one thing, if you keep the same pseudonym the whole tournament, it's not really any different from using your real name the whole tournament (in terms of keeping track of individual stats, anyway). Even if you're switching names around, it wouldn't be hard to keep track of your own stats.

Zip Zap Rap Pants · Post by **Zip Zap Rap Pants** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:20 pm

wwellington wrote:
Also, it can make players pay less attention to their own individual stats
I don't really buy this argument...for one thing, if you keep the same pseudonym the whole tournament, it's not really any different from using your real name the whole tournament (in terms of keeping track of individual stats, anyway). Even if you're switching names around, it wouldn't be hard to keep track of your own stats.

My main point with that is players are less likely to care as much/brag about stats if they use pseudonyms, because people often won't be able to look back at the stats and know who's who. Yeah maybe for their own personal pleasure players will look back at them, but I think they care less about it in general if they don't say "HAH! Look at this link, I broke X ppg" (with a pseudonym the conversation might follow "Yeah, but which one are you?" "Uhh, Basileus" "Yeah right mo-ron, only Andrew Yaphe could legitimately put up those kinds of points").

wwellington · Post by **wwellington** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:30 pm

"HAH! Look at this link, I broke X ppg"

I am sad for people who do that.

sweaver · Post by **sweaver** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:33 pm

For most of them, Matt is their middle name. Their first name is "Welcome."

quizbowllee · Post by **quizbowllee** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 1:47 am

Hmm... I don't think I have EVER had a Matt on my team. Perhaps I should get one...

I've had a few Jacobs, Justins, Amandas, Jameys, and Marks, but no Matts.

MLafer · Post by **MLafer** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:42 am

can i play for Brindlee Mountain

jbarnes112358 · Post by **jbarnes112358** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:48 am

The Scientist/Statistician/Freakonomist in me decided to launch an investigation into the Matt phenomenon. I looked at the individuals at NAQT HSNCT for my data set. http://naqt.com/hsnct/2007/results/personal.html.

I used the Social Security Administration data for name popularity in the 1989-1992 time frame with 1990 as my representative year. http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/

Below are the top 5 boy baby names in 1990 along with the number of NAQT players with those names (with obvious nickname variants. e.g., Matt=Matthew, Mike=Michael, etc.)

1. Michael 22
2. Christopher 10*
3. Matthew 16
4. Joshua 4
5. Daniel 10

There were 13 Andrews and 14 Davids, two other names that cracked the top 5 during this four year span.

*Sometimes Chris can be used as a girl's name.

As for the girls? I am guessing that around 30% or so of the participants at NAQT were girls (an underrepresentation phenomenon that is scientifically interesting in its own right)

Below are the top 5 girl baby names in 1990 along with the number of NAQT players with those names.

1. Jessica 0
2. Ashley 0
3. Brittany 0
4. Amanda 1
5. Samantha 0**

There were 4 Sarahs, the only other name that cracked the top 5 during this time span.

** It is possible that some of the Sams are really Samanthas.

Conclusions: The Matt mystery is somewhat explained.

But, the most obvious question is why are there not more players named Jessica, Ashley, Brittany, Amanda, and Samantha?

I have not determined whether this is statistically significant. Since I only have rank and not percentages from the SSA, it is impossible to compute the p-values. However, at first glance, at least, this seems like it could be a statistically significant result.

wwellington · Post by **wwellington** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:23 pm

What percentage of the girls are Chinese/Indian/some other ethnicity that probably wouldn't use a top five name? It might not be relevant at all, just guessing based on the fact that when my high school had three girls starting, the other two were named Yan and Shuyu.

jbarnes112358 · Post by **jbarnes112358** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 4:42 pm

wwellington wrote:What percentage of the girls are Chinese/Indian/some other ethnicity that probably wouldn't use a top five name? It might not be relevant at all, just guessing based on the fact that when my high school had three girls starting, the other two were named Yan and Shuyu.

Excellent question. If so, why are the common male names there, but not the female? I invite others to continue the research. Perhaps there are some psychology/sociology research papers here.

jbarnes112358 · Post by **jbarnes112358** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 6:33 pm

jbarnes112358 wrote: I have not determined whether this is statistically significant. Since I only have rank and not percentages from the SSA, it is impossible to compute the p-values. However, at first glance, at least, this seems like it could be a statistically significant result.

I was thinking that one possible explanation on the lack of Jessica, Ashley, and Brittany, etc, is that there is more variety in girls' names generally, so that it would not be unusual to have few names, even of the most popular names.

Well, after looking at the data further, that does not explain it. The SSA website does provide percentages of all births.

1 Michael 3.0362% Jessica 2.2642%
2 Christopher 2.4390% Ashley 2.2191%
3 Matthew 2.0839% Brittany 1.7799%
4 Joshua 2.0100% Amanda 1.6755%
5 Daniel 1.5713% Samantha 1.2

The percentages are slightly lower for the girl names, but not by much.

So, I am starting to believe that the lack of these names in quizbowl is significant.

Consider the following computation: The probablity that a randomly chosen girl born in the US in 1990 is NOT named Jessica is .9736.
If there are, say, 150 girls at NAQT with names distributed according to the nation on the whole, then the probablity that there are no Jessicas is only .018. An average distribution would yield around 3 Jessicas. The probability of getting no Jessica, Ashley or Brittany out of 150 would be .00003 if I did my math right. On average there would be around 10 such names.

On the other hand if there are 530 random American boys one would expect around 40 of the top three names on average. We observe 48, certainly within any reasonable confidence interval.

So the phenomenon is statistically significant for the girl names it would appear.

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:10 pm

I went through the top 200, and I counted 120 kids with common boy names and 17 with common girl names. I only counted students where I was 99% sure it was a boy or a girl, and I used entirely ethnocentric criteria for deciding whether or not a name was common.

I don't think that 30% of the students listed are girls, but I can't prove anything.

jbarnes112358 · Post by **jbarnes112358** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:58 pm

ReinsteinD wrote:I went through the top 200, and I counted 120 kids with common boy names and 17 with common girl names. I only counted students where I was 99% sure it was a boy or a girl, and I used entirely ethnocentric criteria for deciding whether or not a name was common.

I don't think that 30% of the students listed are girls, but I can't prove anything.

I did something similar, except I went through the entire list. I counted around 110 fairly obvious female names. I then estimated another 40 girls from the names unfamiliar to me or the ones that were ambiguous. That is how I came up with my 150 estimate. But, you are right; that would be closer to 20 or 25 per cent.

quizbowllee · Post by **quizbowllee** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 1:53 am

You're hard-core.