The Likelihood of Dating a Christopher…

Posted on July 24th, 2007 by Christine.
Categories: Sex and Relationships.

Last week, Christopher’s parents came to visit and while Christopher was spending time with his dad, I spent quite a bit of time with his mom. Now… let me give you some background on our names. Christopher is called “Chris” by almost everyone. I am called “Christine” by almost everyone except my immediate family. They call me “Chris.” When Christopher and I visit my family and someone says, “Hey, Chris…” we both turn and look, but my family calls Christopher “Christopher” because they’re used to calling me “Chris.” It’s all a little confusing for sure.

While Christopher’s parents were out, his mother had lunch with my mother and my mom called me “Chris.” And that’s how this whole thing about name confusion came about.

For the sake of this blog… I’m glad we’re both Chris or the whole “chris vs. chris” thing wouldn’t be nearly as cute. But his mom and I, after lunch, were in the car and she said to me… “How funny the two of you have the same name… what are the odds you’d end up with a Chris?”

I laughed and nodded, but it got me thinking about what those odds really were. So I decided to look it up on the SSA’s website to see what my chances were of ending up with a Christopher.

On average, between the birth years of 1970 and 1977 (which would be the correct birth years for the age of men I would date), 2.8% of the males were named Christopher. In 1970-71, it was the 6th most common male name, 72-73 the 2nd most common male name, and 74-77 the 3rd most common male name. So of all the men in my dating pool, almost 3 out of 100 were named ‘Christopher.’ I would only be more likely to date someone by the name of Michael or Jason (the number 1 and 2 names for that time period, on average). So the answer is… it was considerably likely that I might end up with one.

Now, for Christopher, the likelihood of him dating a Christine is less. Only .66% of the women in the same dating pool have the name Christine. Throughout the course of those years, the name Christine ranged from the 14th most common female name to the 30th most common. Now… to make things more complicated, if you include the name “Christina” as a form of the female “Chris,” his chances of dating a “Chris” are higher than mine were of dating a “Christopher.” But Christina does not count (despite the fact that many, many people seem to think they are the same name and cannot decipher between the “a” and “e” vowel), so we won’t go there.

If you want to look up your name to see how many people you share it with, you can look up your birth year at www.ssa.gov website.

4 comments.

What’s in the Name »« Tipping Jars - WTF