A person’s initials can influence how well they perform in
school and sports, according to a new study.

Researchers Leif Nelson from UCSD and Joseph Simmons from
Yale University studied the effect of first or last-name initials in situations
where letters corresponded to an undesirable outcome.

They found that people whose initials matched a negative
label perform more poorly than others. Nelson and Simmons report that baseball
players whose first or last name starts with the letter K, which represents a
strikeout, tended to strike out more often than other players. Similarly,
students whose names start with the letters C or D, which signify mediocre
marks in grading systems, did not perform as well as other students with
different initials.

“Just having the right initial doesn’t make you a better
baseball player, but it can make you a slightly worse baseball player,” Nelson
said in a press release.