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To: LPS5 who wrote (30)2/4/2005 12:31:07 PM
From: zonder  Read Replies (3) | Respond to 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...