The Ecphorizer

Mensa Rosterology
Ken Uhland

Issue #05 (January 1982)


More than you ever wanted to know about the SF members' names [in 1981]


Recently, National provided us with a computer tape containing data on the membership of San Francisco Regional Mensa. At the request of our Assistant LocSec, JoAnn Malina, I provided a printout of the data on the tape. In reviewing this information, a number of interesting facts

61.1402% of the males use titles while 67.11% of the females do so...

emerged concerning our members. For example, of the 2566 members listed:

A total of 2003 different last names appeared. This means that 290 names were shared by 853 members and there were 1713 unique names. The most common name, as might be expected, is Smith, shared by 17 members. The next most common names were Anderson and Miller (16 members each); Johnson (15 members); Williams, Adams, Brown, and Lewis (11 each); Freeman, Jones, Moore, Taylor, and Wilson (7 each); Cooper, Harris, Holmes, Martin, White, and Young (6 each); Benson, [quoteright]Foster, Hughes, Jackson, Larson, Lee, Patterson, Russell, Stone, and Wong (5 each). Four members each have names of Carlson, Carter, Craig, Davidson, Edwards, Hess, McDonald, Scott, Shaw, Tucker, Walker, and Weiss. Fifty-six last names are shared by three members each, and 183 names are used by two members each.

The most common letter with which last names began is M (272), followed by S (269), B (208), C (199), H (198), W (166), L (134), K (131), P (125), D (117), R (107), and G (102). The least cam= letter was Q (1), followed by U (10), I (12), Z (16), and Y (17). Other letters used in less than 100 names were V, E, N, 0, J, T, A, and F.

Duplications in first names occurred more often with 297 names shared by 2119 members The most common names were John (96); Robert (92); David (77); James (75); William & Wm (65 & 4, respectively); Richard (52); Michael (47); Charles (41); Donald and Thomas (34 each); Mary (29); George and Paul (27 each); Joseph (26); Kenneth and Patricia (25 each); Jack (21); Edward (19); Stephen (18); Barbara, Mark, Peter, and Ronald (16 each); Alan and Susan (15 each), and Dorothy, Frank, Gary, and Nancy (14 each). Initials-only showed up fairly often: C (7), A & W (6 each); H, M, & S (5 each); B & G (4 each); F & L (3 each); and P (2). Some of the less common names that showed up more than once were Beryl, Jamie, Janis, Lila, Luther, Lyle, Lynda, Michele, Myra, Phoebe, Rod, Sari, Tod (not Todd!), and Vivienne (2 each); and Dana, Forrest, Francine, and Hilary (3 each).

Some unusual names which appeared only once were Achilles, Alnair, Burns, Charlienne, Dasja, Daunna, Didi, Dinstan, Elna, Erling, Gaby, Gareth, Gurnam, Gysbert, Flene, Iowan, Jacqui, Jewel, Josefa, Kanwal, Karilon, Kevane, Leilani, Loron, Maris, Meredy, Nika, Panthea, Rajiv, Rathinder, Repha, Roxie, Samir, Sandesh, Teiji, Tertius, Tyanne, Vetrus, Zelda, and Zulema. To balance things out, some fairly common names also appeared once: Amy, Angela, Arnold, Bernadette, Bernard, Caroline, Cecelia, Conrad, Debra, Dianne, Dwight, Ella, Flora, Francis, Geraldine, Hope, Jane, Jeannette, Josephine, Lillian, Lucy, Marsha, Nathaniel, Nelson, Olivia, Oscar, Penny, Rudolph, Violet, Vincent, and Wanda.

Middle initials showed e interesting results, too. No middle initial was shown for 428 members, and for two members the initial was enclosed " ". The remaining 2136 members showed the following preferences:

A

272

E

165

I

14

M

210

R

141

W

102

B

78

F

69

J

191

N

23

S

111

Y

3

C

119

G

73

K

41

O

22

T

35

Z

2

D

109

H

90

L

205

P

50

V

20

Of the 2566 members listed on the tape, over two thirds of our membership is male (1719 members -- 66.9914%), 827 are female (32.2291%) and the other 20 apparently aren't telling (0.7794%).

Over 95% (2247 members to be exact) don't use any kind of suffix after their names. The remaining 4.6376% break down as follows:

111

1

DDS

3

ESQ

1

JR

70

OHLM

1

SJ

1

CLU

1

ED.D.

1

II

7

MD

7

RE

1

SR

6

D

1

EINE

1

III

11

MM-1

1

PHD

3

VM

1

On the other bend, our members seem to have a great liking for titles in front of their names -- only 834 members (32.5019%) have their names unadorned. The rest have the following:

ATILLA

1

ESQ

1

MAJ

2

MS

454

REV

3

ATTY

1

GENMGR

1

MASTER

1

MSGT

1

SIR

1

CANTOR

1

GP LDR

1

MISS

31

PHD

1

SR ENG

1

CAPT

1

LANDMA

1

MISTER

1

PLANNR

1

TS

1

CLMMGR

1

LCDR

2

MJR

1

PRES

1

YS

1

CMDR

1

LORD

1

MR

1045

PROF

3

 

 

COL

2

LT

3

MR.

1

RADM

1

 

 

DR

91

LTC

1

MRS

70

REGMGR

1


A massive male ego seems to appear. Adding the unarguably male titles (Esq., Lord, Master, Mister, Mr, Mr., and Sir), we get 1051 members for 40.9587% of the membership. The unarguably female titles (Miss, Mrs, and Ms) total only 555, or 21.629%. However, when considered with the number of male and female members, 61.1402% of the males use titles, while 67.11% of the females do (even if the 20 unspecified members are assumed to be female, the percentage -- 65.5254 - exceeds male titles).

With the exceptions of the 2 members in foreign countries, we use 326 different ZIP codes in cur addresses, ranging from 93204 through 95570. The most frequently used Zips are 94087 (49), 94109 (46), 94025 and 94122 (45 each), 94022 (44), 94086 (42), and 95014 (41). There are 89 ZIP codes used by one member each, 34 Zips by 2 members each, and 25 codes having 3 members each.

Telephone information is not available for 332 members (12.9384%), 544 (21.2003%) have no phone, and 26 (1.0133%) want to keep their numbers secret. The remaining 1664 members cover 13 area Codes:

008

1

215

1

415

1111

707

92

916

1

209

96

408

342

508

1

714

2

 

 

213

1

412

1

613

1

8051

14


 


Rosterology is a new science, discovered this month by Ken Uhland. Ken and his hyperactive computer also create a monthly puzzle section for the SFRM newletter the Intelligencer.

More Articles by Ken Uhland



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