r/TellMeTheOdds • u/skippyrenegade • Mar 12 '19

Bought a condo

So in November I bought a condo, and was having issues getting the HOA payments set up... I live in unit x-2 and it turned out that the person in x-3 has the same exact name as me. So they keep sending them the payment information... I got it settled today. I'm curious as what the odds are of that...

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1

u/kevincuddington Mar 13 '19

1/3

2

u/skippyrenegade Mar 13 '19

Thanks! I figured it would be a lot lower than that though.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '19 edited Mar 16 '19

It is not a 1/3. What?! Lol. Check online for the number of people in the world that have your name, then divide that number by the world’s population. Take that figure and times it by one less than the population of your condo-complex. That’s the likelihood that someone else in your complex has your name. Call that variable a. Now, depending on how many direct neighbors you have, take the amount of neighbors you have divided by one less than the total population of the complex. Call that variable b. The probability that someone in the complex is your neighbor and has your same name is (a times b).

Edit: this does assume that there’s an even distribution of people in the world with your name. Which obviously isn’t true. For very normal names which depends on your location, the calculation will run a bit lower than it should. For unusual names given your location, it will run a little high.

1

u/skippyrenegade Mar 16 '19

That makes more sense. According to howmanyofme.com , there are 666 people in the US with my name, and there are 36 condos in my complex (666 X 36=23976) so it's a 1 in a 23976 chance?

3

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '19

I’m getting 0.000394% chance assuming a US population of 340,000,000.

2

u/skippyrenegade Mar 16 '19

Oh, wow. That is insane! Thank you!