Talk:Wayne

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Discussion of mental associations in popular culture[edit]

I think that we need to discuss the sociocultural significance of the middle name "Wayne" in either a) a new article titled "Wayne (middle name)" or b) a section in this one. Example:

In popular culture

The middle name "Wayne", at least as it occurs among the "Caucasian"/"white" American population, is popularly associated with a propensity for criminal (esp. violent) behavior, especially since the early 1990s when Chuck Shepherd of News of the Weird began compiling a database of murderers with the middle name "Wayne" and featuring updates to it in his column, which appeared first in independent local magazines and later on the World Wide Web as well.[1] Shepherd himself has reserved judgment on whether his compilation is statistically significant,[2] but other researchers[3] have attempted to compare the middle name's prevalence among male or white male offenders of various types (ranging from convicted felons generally to convicted murderers specifically) against its prevalence in the overall male or white male population. These comparisons typically find a substantial over-representation[4] that suggests at least one of three explanations:

  1. the controversial "affirmative hypothesis" of a strong correlation between the sociocultural preference for the middle name and the sociocultural toleration or encouragement of criminal behavior,
  2. the "null hypothesis" of a strong correlation between sociocultural preference for the middle name and other factors (such as poverty) that independently necessitate or prompt criminal behavior, and/or
  3. the "affirmative hypothesis" of causation in the opposite direction, most notably a strong sociocultural bias on the part of juries/judges either against the name itself or against at least one group that exhibits a strong sociocultural preference for the middle name.
70.169.149.207 (talk) 18:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
References
  1. ^ http://newsoftheweird.com/wayne.html
  2. ^ Id.: "Before anyone asks me, I will answer: No, I have no idea whether the number of middle-named Wayne murderers is statistically significant. I suspect that aggressive-personality fathers during the 1950s and 1960s did in fact hopefully and disproportionately name their boys after that era's icon of ruggedness, John Wayne. Beyond that, I dare not venture."
  3. ^ See, e.g., http://uclue.com/?xq=936.
  4. ^ Id.

No section or page devoted to the name itself?[edit]

I'm surprised that there's no article for this name. Could someone add at least an etymology to this DAB page? Aristophanes68 (talk) 14:05, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]