The 2008 Average Salaries By First Name

Oct 19, 2008

On a lighter note, one of our engineers came up with an idea to find the average salary of first names across our database. The idea was, in part, sparked by some eye opening data presented in Levitt & Dubner (2005), Freakonomics, on the relation between a person's name and their success in life. Since our database consists of nearly 2.6 million US salary survey records with validated first names with salaries, we thought we'd provide some real statistical data on first names.

Top 5 First Names
Rank	First Name	Average Salary
1	Laurence	$89,945
2	Mohammad	$86,746
3	Stuart	$83,658
4	Ira	$82,164
5	Alan	$81,641

On to the ranking, Laurence is the winner earning close to $90,000 on average. Following Laurence at a distance is Mohammad with an average salary of over $86,700. Next in line is Stuart at $83,658 followed by Ira and Alan. Its interesting to note the difference in spellings between 'Alan' and 'Allan' is a difference of close to $2,800. Between the highest and lowest ranked first name is a difference of close to $14,000.

To be considered for the list, the minimum number of occurances for each name is 200. If you are curious, like us, what a higher minimum threshold of 800 would reveal, click here for average salary at higher threshold. The full list is presented below. Please read our disclaimer below before asking your boss for raise (or naming your baby)!
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The Top 25 First Names By Average Salary

Rank	First Name	Average Salary
1	Laurence	$89,945
2	Mohammad	$86,746
3	Stuart	$83,658
4	Ira	$82,164
5	Alan	$81,641
6	Gregg	$80,514
7	Peter	$80,113
8	Philip	$79,625
9	Howard	$79,369
10	Edmund	$79,162
11	Allan	$78,847
12	Neil	$78,825
13	Bruce	$78,794
14	Stephen	$78,534
15	Hugh	$77,998
16	Lawrence	$77,887
17	Barry	$77,688
18	Jay	$77,510
19	Geoffrey	$77,211
20	Francis	$76,669
21	Gerard	$76,638
22	Gordon	$76,558
23	Harvey	$76,283
24	Richard	$76,104
25	Steven	$76,021

Disclaimer on statistical correctness: We are aware this type of ranking may not be statistically correct, however, the data is validated. Use this page at your own risk.
To be considered for the list, the minimum number of occurances for each name is 200 and the name should occur in atleast 3 different employers. The job title or position was ignored. Please consider this page as a 'recreational statistic'.
Database: Sept, 2008 with approximately 2.6 million records.