January 30, 2011

North American Scrabble players' last names ranked by Scrabble score

For a time, I played competitive Scrabble. I even won a couple of tournaments. I don't play very much these days, what with a new baby and being busy changing the world and all.

But as a lark, I decided to try something: ranking Scrabble players' last names by using Scrabble's own scoring system. I figured my last name, with three Z's (30 points), two C's (6 points), and a K (5 points), would make me very competitive.

So I downloaded the full list of Scrabble players from the North American Scrabble Players Association. Then I ran a couple of Unix commands and wrote a quick Python script to findthe answer.

Here's are the Unix commands and the full source code of the script (don't blink):

cat current_2011-01.txt | awk '{print $1}' > current_2011-01-2.txt  
time ./scrabble_last_names.py > current_2011-01-3.txt  
more current_2011-01-3.txt | sort | uniq | sort -nr | head -30  

letter_values = {'A':1, 'B':3, 'C':3, 'D':2, 'E':1, 'F':4, 'G':2, 'H':4, 'I':1, 'J':8, 'K':5, 'L':1, 'M':3, 'N':1, 'O':1, 'P':3, 'Q':10, 'R':1, 'S':1, 'T':1, 'U':1, 'V':4, 'W':4, 'X':8, 'Y':4, 'Z':10, '-':0, "'":0}  
  
rows = open('current_2011-01-2.txt').readlines()  
for row in rows:  
    sum = 0  
    row = row[:-1]  
    for letter in row:  
        sum = sum + letter_values[letter]  
print sum, row

And the results of the top 30 last names, with their respective Scrabble scores, are listed below. I was right to think I was competitive. ;-)

52 SZCZEPANCZYK  
48 PRZYBYSZEWSKI  
43 MROCZKIEWICZ  
42 MIKOLAJCZYK  
41 ZXQKJ  
41 KAZMIEROWICZ  
38 JANOTA-BZOWSKI  
37 ZMORZYNSKI  
37 VAZQUEZ  
36 KRAWCZYNSKI  
35 SZYMKOWIAK  
34 MARTINEZ-WOMBOLD  
34 KLEMASZEWSKI  
34 IMPELLIZZERI  
34 GAJDEROWICZ  
34 EZEKOWITZ  
34 CZERNIKOWSKI  
34 CRAWFORD-MACKAY  
33 SCHECKWITZ  
32 SUJJAYAKORN  
32 SCHWARTZBERG  
32 NAHACZEWSKI  
32 MATLOCK-WASHINGTON  
32 JANKOWITZ  
32 GRZYBOWSKI  
32 GIOVINAZZO  
31 ZEBOVITZ  
31 ROHATYNSKYJ  
31 QUACKENBUSH  
31 MACQUEEN-SMITH

Some thoughts:

  • Polish names dominate. By my assessment, the top four, eight of the top ten, and 15 of the top 30 scores are Polish -- what with a preponderance of Z's, that's little surpriZe. ;-)

  • Having a hyphenated last name also helps; of the top 30, four have hyphenated last names; the leading hyphenated last name (JANOTA-BZOWSKI) has both hyphenated parts being Polish.

  • I won; good thing I studied hard. Cue Queen.

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