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Pastimes : Dispatches from the Ivory Tower
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To: LPS5 who wrote (30)2/4/2005 12:31:07 PM
From: zonder  Read Replies (3) of 79
 
Actually, the probability is slightly higher.

Your calculation assumes that each letter leads to an equal number of possibilities for first names. However, there are perhaps a thousand first names starting with M but only a couple starting with Q (I can think of only "Quentin").

Therefore, the probability of Quentin being chosen over Michael is not 1/26.

Even if you were going by number of letters, you should probably pick 25 instead of 26, since I don't think there are any names that start with X, normal for an American family, anyway...
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