Matched-names analysis reveals no evidence of name-meaning effects: a collaborative commentary on Silberzahn and Uhlmann (2013)

In an article recently published in this journal (Silberzahn & Uhlmann, 2013), two of the authors of the present commentary found that Germans whose last name has a noble meaning, henceforth referred to as a noble surname, such as Kaiser (“emperor”) or König (“king”), were more likely to hold managerial positions than Germans with other last names. However, further data collection and new analyses, reported in this collaborative commentary, indicate that the apparent name-meaning effect is more likely attributable to name frequency. That is, these findings suggest that the effects reported previously should not be interpreted as evidence of a causal effect of names on career outcomes