“An Abundance of Katherines: The Game Theory of Baby Naming”, Katy Blumer, Kate Donahue, Katie Fritz, Kate Ivanovich, Katherine Lee, Katie Luo, Cathy Meng, Katie Van Koevering2024-03-31 (STEM humor, language, decision theory)⁠:

[note author names & titular allusion; for SIGBOVIK; cf. Goodman et al 2014, Greenberg et al 1993] In this paper, we study the highly competitive arena of baby naming.

Through making several Extremely Reasonable Assumptions (namely, that parents are myopic, perfectly knowledgeable agents who pick a name based solely on its uniqueness), we create a model which is not only tractable and clean, but also perfectly captures the real world.

We then extend our investigation with numerical experiments, as well as analysis of large language model tools.

We conclude by discussing avenues for future research.

…For instance, a parent might anticipate the name “Kate” would be a pleasantly traditional yet unique name with only moderate popularity. They would be wrong [Blumer et al 2024]…Simon Shindler contributed substantially to the aesthetic of Figure 7, but could not be named an author for obvious reasons.