Well Bill, interestingly enough, I agree with you....to a point. I was waiting for some PVC glue to set after I left Mudcat and when I came back from the basement I kept thinking about this one and decided to try some search engine stuff. Now this was before I read your post and I will say that sometimes the jokes are simply that and there so how can I pass it by....yeah, I should, but I have no self-control. But that doesn't mean that I'm not interested in some topic and this one kinda' got me. That said..........

Checking back on Google, William, Michael, Robert, and John, are by far the most popular English names. If you check for the past ten years, it isn't always so, but going back a hundred it's obvious that though they may not be the top 4 every year (they aren't-only Michael has held long running top status for some reason), they always make the top 20. Out of those, if you play with the search engines from the DT, cowpie, lyrics world, insurgent cmhp, you get more hits for William or it's variants than any other and of the 4, Michael finishes dead last. Maybe that's because I tried only Michael and Mike, whereas the others I tried multiples like John, Johnny, Johnnie, Jon, Jack, etc.

I know that's not too scientific because you pick up the words that are related but not the name such as mike(microphone) or bill (sent the bill).....but I figured the error factor would probably be about the same because all of them have some with dual meanings.

In any case William and it's variants comes out first and I still have no idea why. It is a popular name, but I think it must simply be the ease of saying it, rhyming it, whatever, combined with the popularity of the name. Somebody else will have to figure it out......but as to Nigel? Always strikes me as an upper class version of Cletus.

Spaw