Once upon a time, the year was 2002. That year, I discovered an important law of the universe: Every classroom in Florida with students of approximately the same age as myself has at least one girl named Katie, Stephanie, or Amanda. This discovery built upon my brother's previous theorem that overlooked the abundance of Amandas, an adjustment to the formula that I made myself.

After discovering this law, I have grown accustomed to using these three names for female characters whenever I've played video games that allow name customization (such as most RPGs or The Oregon Trail). In older games that imposed draconian limits on the length of player names, I have sometimes truncated them to Katy, Steph, and Amy. If you've been paying a shameful amount of attention to my screenshot collection, you now understand the origin of this habit.

Since then, my experience shows that this law has generally held true. During my college years, nearly all of my classes have been KSA-compliant: They've consistently included at least one student (or, in rarer cases, a professor) with one of those three names, or variants thereof. Amanda has proven to be the most plentiful of these three names.

Including the three classes I'm currently taking, I've taken 15 classes where I can confirm there was at least one Katie, Stephanie, or Amanda. Two of my Information Systems classes had only one female student each, and neither of those students were KSAs. Those two classes should be regarded as outliers, however, considering their relatively small size and unusual degree of gender homogeneity. I've also taken five classes where I didn't maintain any reliable records of my classmates' names - primarily online classes or classes with unusually high student attrition - and I can't verify anything with those.

For those who find it unsettling that I store detailed logs of my classmates' names, you should also keep in mind that I also keep a database of pretty much everything I've ever written in class. Perhaps this information will come in handy someday when one of my old classmates is running for public office and I can use these records for blackmail purposes, I mean, to attest for their good character.

(But seriously, I like keeping track of weird things. I'm a baseball fan, so what do you expect?)



Do any names seem to keep recurring in your neck of the woods?

i have at least two katies who work up front at my store, with at least two, maybe three, samanthas who work in various departments

i don't remember if i have an amanda, but i'm almost certain that i do

I teach. Every class has at least one Juan some three Juans.

i also forgot: my shrink is named stephanie, but i don't know if that's really that worth mentioning

I started a new class last night, but I'll have to drop it because none of my classmates are named Katie, Stephanie, or Amanda. (Or because I'm taking more than enough classes this semester, and I'll still graduate on time even if I drop this, but that reason doesn't fit the topic as nicely.)

Also, I used to get lots of e-mail from various Stephanies about guides I've written. I don't often get reader mail any more, though. An awesome young Stephanie from France is also one of the few people to have produced music for me, which automatically puts her on my Awesome People List.