Good names are important. It’s true. Props to Freakonomics for this interesting tidbit. “There is a clear pattern at play: Once a name catches on among high-income, highly educated parents, it starts working its way down the socioeconomic ladder. Amber, Heather, and Stephanie started out as high-end names. For every high-end baby given those names, however, another five lower-income girls received those names within 10 years.”
Have you ever read the Baby Name Wizard blog (http://www.babynamewizard.com/blog/index.html)? It’s by a lady who writes baby name books. She also has this application thingy that charts the popularity of different names over time on a graph (http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html) that is interesting to play around with.
Anyways, she talks about this kind of stuff a lot. For whatever reason I find the whole subject really fascinating, and maybe you would too. I wonder what she would make about the statement you mentioned. A lot of times, when there’s some theory in the news, she ends up poking holes in it (e.g. here: http://www.babynamewizard.com/blog/2005/06/quick-name-your-kids-david-and-susan.html).