credits: iStockphoto

Why, you may ask?

I’ll tell you. Her initials are E.M.L!

Now, before anyone assumes I have dived off the deep end of crazy-mommy-land, let me explain my rationale for wondering if my baby’s report card is going to reflect my lack of awareness when selecting a moniker and the resulting initials.

According to a recently released study, certain initials can have an impact on how well a person performs in sports or at school.

Researchers studied the impact of initials and discovered some surprising results, including the fact that baseballs players whose name starts with the letter “K”, (which happens to stand for a strikeout in the sport) tended to strike out more often than players with other initials.

Researchers Leif Nelson, of the University of California, San Diego and Joseph Simmons, of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, studied the effect of first or last-name initials and compared them to letters corresponding with “undesirable outcomes.” As part of the research, they looked at 93 years of Major League data and more than 6,000 players names and sports records.

The same surprising result was discovered when looking at students and comparing their educational marks to their initials. Students whose names start with a “C” or a “D”, (grades most parents strive to help their children avoid), routinely performed worse than their counterparts with other initials. Results were drawn from a period of 15 years of study.

The findings suggest that “the unconscious mind finds one’s own initials appealing even when it compromises success.” The study will be published in the journal Psychological Science.

Does your baby’s name start with a “C” or a “D”? If so, at least you can worry a little less than me. After all, “C’s” and “D’s” don’t look as bad as an “E”, right?

But can having the “right” initial make you a better player or student? According to the researchers, Adam will not automatically do better on an exam than Edward, but Edward will most likely do worse than Adam.

In other words, the “right” initial might not make an individual a better student or ball player, but the “wrong” initial can spontaneously make an individual a worse student or ball player. Apparently, it is the minds way of striving to match performance to one’s own initials.

Great, so after pouring over countless baby name books and scouring through baby name websites in the search of the “perfect” name for our little bundle of joy, and creating list after list and arguing and debating until, literally, the moment before they induced my labor, we apparently still screwed up.

And just wait until my little Eventual Major Loser Eliana finds out she could have been an Awesome, magnificent leader named Alanna.

That’s strike one for Mommy. Unless, of course, “E” stands for “Excellent.”