Naughty and nice children’s names: Who makes Santa’s list?

BETTER alert Santa – a list of kids who have been naughty and nice this year has been released. Who makes the list?

Naughty and nice kids’ names

BETTER alert Santa – a list of kids who have been naughty and nice this year has been released by a sticker company that gives personalised awards to 10,000 schools in the UK for kids who have excelled.

From that data, they worked out the names that occur most frequently among the “good” kids and the names of the kids who could use a little improvement! Here’s what they found:

Best behaved boys’ names

Jacob

Daniel

Thomas

James

Adam

Harry

Samuel

Jack

Oliver

Ryan

Best behaved girls’ names

Amy

Georgia

Emma

Charlotte

Grace

Sophie

Abigail

Hannah

Emily

Alice

Susan Walker from MIracle on 34th Street = nice.

Boys who might need to be extra good this year if they want Santa to leave lots of pressies:

Joseph

Cameron

William

Jake

Joshua

Jamie

Louis

Benjamin

Ethan

Luke

Girls who need to pull their socks up before 25 December

Ella

Bethany

Eleanor

Olivia

Laura

Holly

Courtney

Amber

Caitlin

Jade

Will Ferrell’s Elf = naughty

So what’s in a name?

Well, parenting website Kidspot delved into it, of course. According to a previous post, Dr Simon Laham of the University of Melbourne’s Psychological Sciences Academic Centre says, “names carry a lot of information”.

In a study in which he collaborated with researchers from New York University’s Stern School of Business, he found that people with easy-to-pronounce names were more likeable and more successful than those with hard-to-pronounce names.

“It’s due to a phenomenon known as processing fluency,” Dr Laham says. “If a name is easy to pronounce (such as Ben and Kate), it is judged as being more familiar, and more positive.”

A safe, easier-to-pronounce name may in fact prompt a child to excel in life, according to Dr Laham’s study with Dr Adam Alter from New York University.

In the study, the first and last names of 500 US lawyers were analysed and “it was found that those lawyers with the most pronounceable names were promoted faster than their unusually-named counterparts, even though they had comparable skills and experience,” says Dr Laham.

Have you been naughty or nice this year?

Not to be taken too seriously

It’s all a bit of fun of course – in fact School Stickers’ managing director Neil Hodges, says, “The annual ‘Santa’s Naughty and Nice list’ is just a bit of fun, and obviously there are many Ellas and Josephs that are perfect little angels, just as I’m sure there are many Amys and Jacobs that can be a bit of a handful. School Stickers has been trusted by thousands of schools to reward pupils for good behaviour and achievement ever since it was created by a teacher in 2000. We’re proud that our products motivate and inspire young people, whatever their names!”

We agree – of course this list isn’t the be-all and end-all. Except for “Ella” on the naughty list – we’re looking at you Kidspot editor Ella Walsh.

What names do you associate with being naughty and nice?