![[OC] Most Common CEO Names from the Fortune 500](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/4rg4gtaehz7f1-1536x916.png "[OC] Most Common CEO Names from the Fortune 500")
I compiled a list of CEO names from the largest companies in the U.S. (Fortune 500), just out of curiosity. The results were kind of wild.
Out of all 500 CEOs, nearly 30% have one of these 10 first names:
- Robert
- Michael
- James
- Christopher
- John
- William
- David
- Mark
- Timothy
- Brian
That’s 146 CEOs sharing just these 10 names.
Not exactly a diverse naming pool at the top 😅
Tools Used: Google Sheets
Source: Fortune 500 list from 50Pros
Posted by XsLiveInTexas
18 Comments
Need to compare it to non CEO names of people in the same age bracket for this to have any meaning
Oh hey! I had a friend named Robert in high school who bought a trailer park. While this in no way works as a correct interpretation, I’m going to misuse this information to assert that he is more likely to be a CEO because of this.
Glad to see he’s probably doing well.
Would be better if you also presented it scaled to the proportion of how popular that name was for the year range in which these CEOs were born
How many people on the list were women?
I like how there are graduations every 2.5, just in case a company hires half a Robert.
How is this beautiful? Your x-scale has a 0.5
Interesting data but not beautiful
Your children, Katniss-Effie and Reaganomics-Blumpkin, are going to be so disappointed to read this.
0.5 units as a graduation for the X-axis is a choice, lol
It’s the base rate of names—since more people are named Robert, the likelihood of a CEO being named Robert is higher. aka Bayesian statistics
That sounds like roll call in Elementary School in the 1970s
I love combining these lol. “Costco appoints new CEO Robert Michael, after retirement of William David is announced.” 😅😅😅😅😅😅
This is actually funny as fk
Systemic much
I wonder what name has the highest ceo / non ceo ratio. Would be more interesting, with this visual it could be the case that those names are just more common in all facets of life.
Well when your name means “Glory” the bar is set.
This list probably matches up pretty well with the most popular males names for genx.
Would like this adjusted by total number of people with the same name. Name percapita or smth.
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