If your name is Ann, are you more likely to end up working for Apple or Dell? A study by Belgian researchers indicates Apple as the more likely choice.

If your name is Frank, does it mean you’ll work for a fucker?

Betsy, will have a job at a Bakery?

Tim Geithner, for the Treasury or the Government?

Barack Obama, for……?

There are a number of critical factors assessed by job-seekers before choosing companies they prefer to work for—including location, salary, benefits and perks, career opportunities. But one other factor also comes into play. The “name-letter effect”: a phenomenon that shows we have a preference for things that begin with the same letter as our first name.

Researchers at Ghent University in Belgium studied a list of Belgian workers and analyzed data from it. Significantly, there were 12 percent more employee name–company matches than probability predicted—meaning that the choices of about one in nine people whose first initial matched that of the company’s had been influenced by the name-letter effect.