Countries that are statistically proven to have the most common or uncommon names Quiz by cheezguyty

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There are 18 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

(Un)Common Country Names Quiz

by cheezguyty

Created Apr 6, 2010 in Geography
Game Plays 384

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	cheezguyty:	Apr 7th, 2010 at 04:00 GMT		1 point
	Thanks for playing my quiz! Please leave any comments or questions.

	cheezguyty:	Apr 7th, 2010 at 04:01 GMT		3 points
	Here’s how the rating system works: the first letter of every country name is compared. However many times a letter occurs, that many points are assigned to its countries. For example; since three countries begin with a J; Jamaica, Japan, and Jordan all receive a score of 3. Then, the same thing is repeated for the second letter of every country name, and so on until the 28th letter. A country receives no more points after its final letter has been scored. Finally, each country’s total points are compared with the maximum possible score for a word (SANAAAA would be the optimal 7-letter country name), and a corresponding ratio is assigned. (continued in next comment)

	cheezguyty:	Apr 7th, 2010 at 04:02 GMT		3 points
	In order to account for common endings between countries whose lengths aren’t the same (such as Indonesia and Micronesia), the entire process is repeated but using the nth last letter. Since only three countries end with a C, those three are given a score of 3. So on, and so on, until another ratio is assigned to each country. The final step was to average the two ratios, one for the frequency of letters when counted from the front, and one for the frequency of letters when starting from the back. Those averages are the numbers you see in the quiz, with the ratios closer to 1 being more common names and the ratios closer to 0 being more uncommon.

	jonesjeffum:	Apr 7th, 2010 at 05:05 GMT		-1 points
	oh i was playing it wrong, i thought it was last names!

	quizzle:	Apr 7th, 2010 at 07:25 GMT		1 point
	i think it would be interesting to factor in the length of the name, the number of words in the name, the number of vowels & consonants, etc. it's just so bizarre i thought for sure kyrgyzstan would have a lock on most uncommon!

	cheezguyty:	Apr 7th, 2010 at 07:31 GMT		2 points
	@quizzle: I did factor in the length of the name, and the other two things are irrelevant. As for Kyrgyzstan, it gets a double boost from the three other -STANs that are also 10 letters long.

	masterofmarth:	Apr 7th, 2010 at 16:22 GMT		1 point
	I don't understand this quiz :(

	harpua22:	Apr 7th, 2010 at 16:40 GMT		-3 points
	this quiz is so dumb

	ig1234:	Apr 8th, 2010 at 00:56 GMT		9 points
	Au contraire, this quiz is the complete opposite of dumb. The inventor has put WAY too much thought and calculation into it, and it's left most of us baffled!

	ig1234:	Apr 8th, 2010 at 01:00 GMT		1 point
	Wait. After looking at the results, I sort of get it... but the Republic and United inclusions confuse me.

	cheezguyty:	Apr 8th, 2010 at 02:08 GMT		3 points
	@ig1234: Are you talking about Czech Republic and United Kingdom being two of the most uncommon names? Yes, their inclusion on the right side does seem rather counterintuitive. The only explanation I can offer is that, although "Republic" and "United" are found within several other country names, the rest of the name consists of rare letter positions. Of course, the CZ- prefix is odd enough, and the -GDOM ending is as well. For Czech Republic, the only letters that earned it more than 10 points when counting from the front are the 1st C and the E. No other "Republic" countries are the same length, so that is no help. As for United Kingdom, it suffers from a really low backwards score. The only letters worth more than 10 points are the 2nd I and the 2nd N. Everything else happens to be rare enough to earn the UK such a low rating.

	drappo:	Jul 31st, 2010 at 00:52 GMT		-1 points
	how is italy in uncommon names, and qatar not?

	cheezguyty:	Jul 31st, 2010 at 08:07 GMT		2 points
	@drappo: It all has to do with the position of the letters within the country name compared to every other country. Qatar's second letter is A, and that is a common second letter, so that makes its score higher. On the other hand, Italy is one of only 2 countries whose second letter is T, so that makes it more uncommon. For Qatar, only the Q is bringing down the score; every other letter is quite common. For Italy, the I, L, and Y are all uncommon among other country names, so that is why its score is so low. I hope that makes sense.

	hlweissman:	Nov 18th, 2010 at 03:37 GMT		4 points
	wow this is really creative! it must have taken forever to score all the countries and calculate their ratios though....

	joebobs:	Mar 1st, 2011 at 18:16 GMT		3 points
	I still don't quite understand it, but I get the gist, and cheezguyty must either be a supercomputer, an NSA agent, or a genius. How in the hell did you ever calculate this?

	joebobs:	Mar 8th, 2011 at 16:58 GMT		2 points
	I can't believe this is so low rated! I think it's amazing. 5 globes, nominated and favourited, and I challenged all my network to it.

	tahitiwahini:	Mar 21st, 2011 at 15:05 GMT		2 points
	Surprised to see no -land countries on the list of most common. Seems like there would be enough of them to make it likely (Ireland, Iceland, Finland, Poland, Thailand, New Zealand, Switzerland, Swaziland, etc.) Not surprised to see many -ia countries as it's a very (maybe most) common suffix for countries.

	Thryduulf:	Nov 23rd, 2011 at 17:53 GMT		1 point
	Very interesting quiz. 5 globes and nominated.