Jim Ottaviani: Hello, my name is Jim Ottaviani. Easier to pronounce than it looks, right? People get intimidated when they see so many letters and syllables, though. I don't know why really, but it has some advantages. For one thing, it's obvious when telemarketers call because they never get to their sales pitch. They're too busy stumbling all over themselves trying to say my name, by which time, I've hung up the phone.

I've often wondered why people find it so hard. I'm a science and math guy, so here's my hypothesis. When the ratio of letters to syllables goes below two on a long name, people get nervous. A couple examples to show you what I mean. Smith or Jones. Five letters each. One syllable each. For a ratio of 5. Easy stuff, right? No telemarketer ever screws those up.

Washington is a long name, 10 letters. But it has only three syllables and 10 divided by three gives a ratio of 3.3. Again, pretty easy. Ottaviani. Nine letters and five syllables, producing an intimidating 1. 8. Is this hypothesis true? I don't know. But you can try the calculation out on your own name and the names of your friends and see if there's enough support to call it a theory.