Why is the letter J overrepresented in the first letters of first names?

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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Science

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unex — 6 years ago(June 30, 2019 03:40 AM)

This occurred to me while watching the opening credits to The Lost Boys, so this should be moved to Film General or the The Lost Boys board. Some of the The Lost Boys crew:
Directed by
J
oel Schumacher; written by
J
anice Fischer,
J
ames Jeremias,
J
effrey Boam; starring
J
ason Patric,
J
ami Gertz,
J
amison Newlander; and if you look at Wikipedia you see the poster was designed by
J
ohn Alvin.
Letter frequency in English. J is second to last:
Letter frequency in the top 100 male and female names from the past 100 years. J is in the middle?:
First letter frequency in the top 100 male and female names from the past 100 years. 31 of those previous 32 were the first letter:
Quite the anomaly.

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NZer — 6 years ago(June 30, 2019 03:45 AM)

Fascinating statistics, and cool graphs. What is the answer to your question? I have no idea myself.

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Vlad. — 6 years ago(June 30, 2019 04:07 AM)

Jesus.
Stop.

[fgadmin]

Alpha Raven Andromeda — 6 years ago(June 30, 2019 05:13 AM)

I know. Somebody is extremely bored…

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Tiffany Penelope Rogers et. al — 6 years ago(June 30, 2019 04:28 AM)

Good thing you bolded the J's for us. We may not have been able to notice them.
I want my pink shirt back.

[fgadmin]

unex — 6 years ago(June 30, 2019 04:48 AM)

You are welcome.

[fgadmin]

𝐸𝓇𝒾𝒸𝒶𝑅𝑒𝓃𝑒—𝒫𝓇𝒾𝒸𝑒 — 6 years ago(June 30, 2019 04:33 AM)

Easy answer: The Bible. James, Joshua and John are extremely popular names because they are all the names of significant Biblical characters . Those popular names alone probably account for most of the J’s.
"You had me at Elk Tartare"
-Erin Wotherspoon

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unex — 6 years ago(June 30, 2019 04:48 AM)

There are a number that come from Latin and Greek. But why should Hebrew be so J sound heavy?

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Jared Kushner — 6 years ago(June 30, 2019 04:37 AM)

Jared-envy.