Namensverteilung in Deutschland (und das „Meierloch“!)

Faszinierender Blog-Eintrag im „schplock“ über die Verteilung von Nachnamen in Deutschland.

Wusste gar nicht, dass es ein „Meierloch“ in Deutschland gibt: den Namen „Meier“ (inklusive aller Schreibvarianten wie Meyer, Mair usw.) gibt es häufig in Norddeutschland und Süddeutschland, aber dazwischen klafft eine große Lücke. Warum das so ist und welcher Name stattdessen dort (und zwar hauptsächlich dort! Wenn man mal von „Migranten“ in die Großstädt usw. absieht) vertreten ist, lest ihr auch dort.

Random memory: Christmas lights

I was just reading the most recent RISKS digest and came across one article that said that

In the author's immediate socio-cultural environment, the unpacking, testing, placement, and maintenance of Christmas lights has been mandated to be "man's work." (Women will, reluctantly, direct the placement of lights, since it is an observed fact that a man has all the artistic sensitivity of a Volkswagen. The car, not the automotive designers.)

I thought back to my childhood days and there, too, it was my father who would get out the Christmas lights every year; I think he was the one who placed them on the tree, too, though I’m not quite sure about that. Maintenance (burned-out bulbs, etc.) was his job, too.

In our household, on the other hand, it’s my wife who gets out the Christmas lights and puts them on the tree, and who would repair them if anything went wrong.

In general, she’s the “handy” person around the house: if something involves assembling or drilling or repairing, it’ll be she who does it.

Things to consider when choosing a baby name

When Stella and I discussed baby names (even before Amy arrived), I made sure to consider what the initials would spell.

Reading through an article on things to watch out for, sure enough, that one’s on it. One I hadn’t heard of is monograms: apparently, final initial flanked by first and middle is common for monograms, so if you’re Lee Daniel Smith you’d get LSD on your gym bag. Hmm, drugs.

But the one that really caught my eye was this bit of advice: consider the common practice in some firms to give email addresses of the form “firstinitial+lastname”, so if you’re Mr and Mrs Atkins call their daughter Frances (or their son Francis), they might end up with fatkins@example.com later on.

That’s the sort of worries that my parents’ generation didn’t have when evaluating baby names :)