Name initials may influence grades: study - Yahoo! News

"Students whose names start with the letters C or D, which denote mediocre marks in some grading systems, did not perform as well as other pupils with different initials."

The theory is that the unconscious mind finds one's own initials appealing even when it compromises success.

Wait just a second here. I think I have to call "shenanigans" on this one. There's no mention of students with names beginning with F. If the theory held true, they would do even worse than the Cs and Ds. F is associated with the ultimate failure, yet those students seem to perform better than those with C and D names. (Or maybe better than anyone. The full study is not available.) This leads me to believe that the C/D phenomenon is caused by some undetermined causative variable which simultaneously generates both lower academic performance and the C&D initials, probably an ethnic or racial array of people who either speak English as a second language and/or tend to be in lower income households.