This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/DiggingNoMore on 2024-03-04 16:04:26.
The most popular first letter of a first name among NFL players going back to 1920 is J. By a pretty wide margin. I’m not going to bore you with the counts of everything (unless someone has a specific question), but nearly 4,000 of the ~27,000 players to ever play have a first name starting with J.
The most popular second letter of a first name is A (with nearly 25% of all players, which is insane).
I continued finding the most popular letter in each position of first names and last names. Now, clearly there are some names that are really long. But I went until the position was more than 50% blank. That is to say, the first name I have come up with - Jarne - is five letters long. That’s because ~55% of NFL players’ first names have a fifth letter. Still a majority. But only ~30% have a sixth letter. So that’s how I ended up cutting off the merged first name after five letters and the merged last name after six letters. Turns out last names are generally longer than first names. I was also surprised to see how many first names were exactly four letters (over a quarter of NFL players).
Anyway, taking the most popular letter at each position resulted in the name Jarne Bareen.
| Pos. | Most Popular Letter | Mr. Big Contributors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | J | John, Jim, Joe, Jack, Jeff |
| 2 | A | Dave, Jack, David, Larry, Paul |
| 3 | R | Chris, Larry, Mark, Jerry, Gary |
| 4 | N | John, Frank, Brandon, Ryan, Johnny |
| 5 | E | Steve, Eddie, Bruce, Andre, Ernie |
| Pos. | Most Popular Letter | Mr. Big Contributors |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | B | Brown, Bell, Baker, Butler, Brooks |
| 2 | A | Davis, Jackson, Harris, Taylor, Walker |
| 3 | R | Harris, Martin, Carter, Turner, Parker |
| 4 | E | Jones, Anderson, Green, Allen, Baker |
| 5 | E | Moore, Miller, White, Walker, Carter |
| 6 | N | Wilson, Martin, Washington, Collins, Nelson |
I was kind of glad to see that the majority stopped the merged last name from proceeding past the sixth letter. Because it got pretty boring after that. The most popular 7th letter? Also N. The most popular 8th letter? 9th letter? 10th? Well, they’re all N. Because of the many, many last names ending with “son”, “sen” and “ton”. So, there you have it. Jarne Bareen.
Curious what the merged name would be if we used the second-most popular letter in each position? That would be none other than the name Boney Mellsr. I, too, was surprised that the letter Y snuck in there, but you can thank your favorite Larry, Jerry, Bobby, Billy, or so many others.