The incredibly improbable Sebastian Ahos

[Teukka]

On Friday, 2nd of January 2015, in the quarterfinal game between Finland and Sweden, two young men will face each other in the rink. They’re both highly skilled players, already noticed by NHL scouts. But the most exceptional thing these two have in common? The name Sebastian Aho. Commentators and reporters have noticed this and joked about it, but exactly how improbable is it in this crazy world of three Mikko Lehtonens for two hockey juniors to share this particular name (and represent different countries)? I need not even go that far to show you a big, big number. Brace yourselves, because this is even more insane than the “Nicklas Bäckström scoring on Niklas Bäckström of another nationality in the NHL” scenario.
http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=152111
http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=67208

First, the last name. Aho is a Finnish surname, meaning “meadow” or “clearing”. According to the Finnish Population Register Centre, there are 7,089 people with the last name Aho alive in Finland; 532 registered Ahos live abroad. There are 4,675,223 ethnic Finns in Finland, so about 0.15% of Finns are Ahos (0.13% of the entire population of Finland). About 470,000 people with full or partial Finnish heritage live in Sweden, but most of them probably don’t have a Finnish last name due to marrying with Swedes and changing names for the sake of fitting in (fairly common), so let’s assume there’s a population of maybe 200,000 people who have a Finnish-language last name in Sweden (Swedes with access to statistics could help out on this one?) and that this population has the same percentage of Ahos. This makes about 300 Ahos in Sweden, which is a believable number, considering the 532 non-Finland-based Ahos mentioned earlier.

Then, on to the first name. While relatively common in Sweden*, Sebastian is a very rare given name in Finland, one that moms might give to their sons in order to sound a little foreign/Euro-fancy. Even in those cases, it’s probably not the primary name, as names with three or more syllables are usually the third** name (examples: Timo Pekka Kalevi, Ville Reima Untamo, Eino Jorma Sebastian). That said, it’s highly likely that of the 13,980 Finns that carry the name Sebastian, much less than half have it as their primary name.
* People with Finnish background in Sweden are probably a little less likely than ethnic Swedes to name a child Sebastian, but a little more likely than Finns in Finland.
** The fact that it’s commonplace in Finland to have TWO middle names further bloats the apparent amount of Sebastians, as the Finnish Population Register Centre counts ALL given names in their first name count.

So, by now we’ve established that the name Sebastian Aho is not your everyday “Jack Johnson” but a rare mixture of a Finnish last name and a much-more-Swedish first name. Using the more accurate data from Finland, we can estimate that the probability for an ethnically Finnish male to have the last name Aho and the name Sebastian as ANY of his given names is less than 1:100,000. There’s not enough accurate data to make a good estimate further than that, but let’s just blindly assume that 2,000 of the 7,089 carriers of the name Sebastian have it as their primary name. [EDIT: faultymath]This makes the probability of someone being “Sebastian Aho” roughly 1:800,000. The probability of something that unlikely to happen twice? ONE IN 640 WHOPPING BILLION; that's 1:640,000,000,000 [/faultymath]. But it doesn’t end here. Not even close.

A couple of more calculator breakers to bring into the equation:
- the probability of two Sebastian Ahos representing a different country
- the probability that both of these guys are born around the same span of a couple years (to appear in the same U20 tournament)
- the probability of both starting to play (organized) hockey in the first place
- the probability of both becoming players of this high (junior NT, NHL draft consideration) caliber
- and more..?

In conclusion: this might be the most incredible coincidence in the history of the universe, and I was too lazy to continue the math beyond the "two people in the world called Sebastian Aho" part. Put everything else there and we have a lot of zeros after the decimal point.

PS. Once these two become NHL players, how should we differentiate them from each other? “Finho & Sweho”, “Aho-96 & Aho-97”..?

Click to read more...

 

[tobu]

I commend you for going through whatever you had to go through to put together this post.

 

[JJTT]

Great work

 

[Lepardi]

There’s not enough accurate data to make a good estimate further than that, but let’s just blindly assume that 2,000 of the 7,089 carriers of the name Sebastian have it as their primary name. This makes the probability of someone being “Sebastian Aho” roughly 1:800,000. The probability of something that unlikely to happen twice? ONE IN 640 WHOPPING BILLION; that's 1:640,000,000,000. But it doesn’t end here. Not even close.

Your logic is pretty darn interesting. Let's say that there are 100,000 people named Matti and 22,000 people named Virtanen in Finland. According to your logic this means that the probability of someone in Finland being named Matti Virtanen is about 1:11,000. The probability of something like that happening twice, according to you, is one in 129 million.

What if I was to tell you that I'll bet there are two guys named Matti Virtanen in Finland? Would you be willing to bet me? Or would you just go back to your math class and try to learn some basics?

 

[Teukka]

Your logic is pretty darn interesting. Let's say that there are 100,000 people named Matti and 22,000 people named Virtanen in Finland. According to your logic this means that the probability of someone in Finland being named Matti Virtanen is about 1:11,000. The probability of something like that happening twice, according to you, is one in 129 million.

What if I was to tell you that I'll bet there are two guys named Matti Virtanen in Finland? Would you be willing to bet me? Or would you just go back to your math class and try to learn some basics?

I knew I must have messed something up; probably the fact that with each ethnically Finnish person, we get around 5 million attempts of hitting a "Sebastian Aho" jackpot? High school was way too long ago... But in any case, taking all the factors into account & give or take a gazillion zeros in the faulty math, this coincidence is still incredibly unlikely.

For the record, if anyone wants to correct the math (and maybe go even further with the registered hockey players / population & NT level talent / all age players in the age group multipliers), please do. This is something that I won't do at 6am after pulling an allnighter, sorry

 

[Atas2000]

On Friday, 2nd of January 2015, in the quarterfinal game between Finland and Sweden, two young men will face each other in the rink. They’re both highly skilled players, already noticed by NHL scouts. But the most exceptional thing these two have in common? The name Sebastian Aho. Commentators and reporters have noticed this and joked about it, but exactly how improbable is it in this crazy world of three Mikko Lehtonens for two hockey juniors to share this particular name (and represent different countries)? I need not even go that far to show you a big, big number. Brace yourselves, because this is even more insane than the “Nicklas Bäckström scoring on Niklas Bäckström of another nationality in the NHL” scenario.
http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=152111
http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=67208

First, the last name. Aho is a Finnish surname, meaning “meadow” or “clearing”. According to the Finnish Population Register Centre, there are 7,089 people with the last name Aho alive in Finland; 532 registered Ahos live abroad. There are 4,675,223 ethnic Finns in Finland, so about 0.15% of Finns are Ahos (0.13% of the entire population of Finland). About 470,000 people with full or partial Finnish heritage live in Sweden, but most of them probably don’t have a Finnish last name due to marrying with Swedes and changing names for the sake of fitting in (fairly common), so let’s assume there’s a population of maybe 200,000 people who have a Finnish-language last name in Sweden (Swedes with access to statistics could help out on this one?) and that this population has the same percentage of Ahos. This makes about 300 Ahos in Sweden, which is a believable number, considering the 532 non-Finland-based Ahos mentioned earlier.

Then, on to the first name. While relatively common in Sweden*, Sebastian is a very rare given name in Finland, one that moms might give to their sons in order to sound a little foreign/Euro-fancy. Even in those cases, it’s probably not the primary name, as names with three or more syllables are usually the third** name (examples: Timo Pekka Kalevi, Ville Reima Untamo, Eino Jorma Sebastian). That said, it’s highly likely that of the 13,980 Finns that carry the name Sebastian, much less than half have it as their primary name.
* People with Finnish background in Sweden are probably a little less likely than ethnic Swedes to name a child Sebastian, but a little more likely than Finns in Finland.
** The fact that it’s commonplace in Finland to have TWO middle names further bloats the apparent amount of Sebastians, as the Finnish Population Register Centre counts ALL given names in their first name count.

So, by now we’ve established that the name Sebastian Aho is not your everyday “Jack Johnson” but a rare mixture of a Finnish last name and a much-more-Swedish first name. Using the more accurate data from Finland, we can estimate that the probability for an ethnically Finnish male to have the last name Aho and the name Sebastian as ANY of his given names is less than 1:100,000. There’s not enough accurate data to make a good estimate further than that, but let’s just blindly assume that 2,000 of the 7,089 carriers of the name Sebastian have it as their primary name. [EDIT: faultymath]This makes the probability of someone being “Sebastian Aho” roughly 1:800,000. The probability of something that unlikely to happen twice? ONE IN 640 WHOPPING BILLION; that's 1:640,000,000,000 [/faultymath]. But it doesn’t end here. Not even close.

A couple of more calculator breakers to bring into the equation:
- the probability of two Sebastian Ahos representing a different country
- the probability that both of these guys are born around the same span of a couple years (to appear in the same U20 tournament)
- the probability of both starting to play (organized) hockey in the first place
- the probability of both becoming players of this high (junior NT, NHL draft consideration) caliber
- and more..?

In conclusion: this might be the most incredible coincidence in the history of the universe, and I was too lazy to continue the math beyond the "two people in the world called Sebastian Aho" part. Put everything else there and we have a lot of zeros after the decimal point.

PS. Once these two become NHL players, how should we differentiate them from each other? “Finho & Sweho”, “Aho-96 & Aho-97”..?

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=211956

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=77117

Both born on 5th October. They might end up on the NT someday, or play on opposing teams.

 

[Teus]

This makes about 300 Ahos in Sweden, which is a believable number, considering the 532 non-Finland-based Ahos mentioned earlier.

971 is the official number for Swedes with Aho as lastname.

 

[VictorLustig]

I actually know two people named Aho in Sweden who aren't related (from what I know). It's definitely not a very common name though.

 

[Tomas W]

Not sure a out the maths but it is a pretty funny coincidence and the odds for it to happen must be very high.

 

[Kairi Zaide]

Now imagine having two Jesper Jensen on the same team.

 

[Suurikelmi]

Okay let’s give it a shot too. I think it’s not interesting itself that there are two Sebastian Ahos in both teams. By the same logic should you be interested to calculate the probability that Finland has a player named Jesse Puljujärvi? The thing that is interesting is that there are atleast two players with the same names in both teams. This is the probability we want to calculate. My take at it:

I present you, team Finland and Sweden:
Sweden:
#1 Jens Svensson
#2 Sebastian Aho
#3 Mats Pääjärvi
…
#23 Björn Jönssön

Finland:
#1 Juuso Peltonen
#2 Mikael Granlund
#3 Sebastian Aho
…
#23 Heikki Suomela

Now both teams take their player names from a distribution of all names in their country. It is not interesting that Sweden has a player named Jens Svensson but it is interesting whether Finland has a player with same name. Similarly it is not interesting that Finland has a player named Juuso Peltonen but whether Swden has player with the same name. The probability 1:800 000 that Teukka calculated is the probability that the first person you come across in the street has the name Sebastian Aho. Lets take this as an average probability for a Finn wearing jersey #4 having a name such as Jens Svensson, Sebastian Aho, Mats Pääjärvi or Björn Jönssön i.e. a a single name from the Swedish whole distribution of names. For simplicity we also assume that this is the probability for a Swede wearing jersey #4 to have a one single name from a Finnish distribution of names. We mark this 1:800 000 as “p(name)†now. I don’t want to argue too deep about how reliable this probability is but rather take is as a given parameter. Of course there are less Björn Jönssöns in Finland but there is also higher probability for a Swede to be named Björn Jönssön than Sebastian Aho, so the effects would even each other out they were included in calculations that follow.

Then the probability for teams to have atleast one pair of players with same names is the complement(kind of opposite) of probability that teams don’t have a single pair of players with the same name. Both teams have 23 players. The probability that teams don’t have players with same name is:

(equation 1): p(no player in Finnish team has the same name as player #1 from Swedish team)xp(no player in Finnish team has the same name as player #2 from Swedish team)x xp(no player in Finnish team has the same name as player #3 from Swedish team)… xp(no player in Finnish team has the same name as player #23 from Swedish team)

Now p(no player in Finnish team has the same name as player #1 from Swedish team) =
p(player #1 in Finnish team doesn’t have the same name as player #1 in Swedish team)xp(player #2 in Finnish team doesn’t have the same name as player #1 in Swedish team)x xp(player #3 in Finnish team doesn’t have the same name as player #1 in Swedish team)… xp(player #23 in Finnish team doesn’t have the same name as player #1 in Swedish team)
= (1-p(name))x(1-p(name))x(1-p(name))… (1-p(name)) = (1-p(name)) raised to the power of 23.

Then (equation 1) becomes: [(1-p(name)) raised to the power of 23]x[(1-p(name)) raised to the power of 23]x[(1-p(name)) raised to the power of 23]…x[(1-p(name)) raised to the power of 23]
= [(1-p(name)) raised to the power of 23] raised to the power of 23

i.e. we calculate for each Swedish player that none of the Finns has the same name and then multiply these probabilities by one another. This is obviously close to 1 in a 0 to 1 scale

The opposite of this is the probability we want to know
1-{[(1-p(name)) raised to the power of 23] raised to the power of 23}
So it becomes with the given parameter:

1-{[(1-(1:800000)) raised to the power of 23] raised to the power of 23} = 0.00066103183 = 0.066103183%
calculating the odds: 1/0.00066103183 = 1514

So the chances are 1 in 1514 for Finland and Sweden to have atleast one pair of players with same names in both teams. Highly unlikely but not impossible. You can of course easily change the name probability parameter in the formula and discuss about the the name distribution assumptions but I think this is the ballpark it comes down to.

 

[Teukka]

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=211956

http://www.eliteprospects.com/player.php?player=77117

Both born on 5th October. They might end up on the NT someday, or play on opposing teams.

Unless they messed up the formatting, the other one is born 5th of October and the other 10th of May, but yeah, pretty improbable. But the first name Vladimir is like the most common first name in Slavic countries and the population in which this can happen is vastly larger than the Finns (unless Tkachyov is an Ethnic minority name of some kind, which I doubt).

Now imagine having two Jesper Jensen on the same team.

I was about to say that your limited exposure to Danish naming makes you prone to overvalue the significance of this, but then I realized that you're right about something being crazy; it's incredible that there are just two

 

[Atas2000]

Unless they messed up the formatting, the other one is born 5th of October and the other 10th of May, but yeah, pretty improbable. But the first name Vladimir is like the most common first name in Slavic countries and the population in which this can happen is vastly larger than the Finns (unless Tkachyov is an Ethnic minority name of some kind, which I doubt).

They did messed up the formatting. They are both born on 5th October. And that makes up for their names not being rare. How many ppl with exactly the same name and surname are born on the same day of the year? Also them being close in age makes it probable for them to end up on the NT someday or play against eachother.

 

[Jevo]

Now imagine having two Jesper Jensen on the same team.

Jensen is the most common last name in Denmark, roughly 5% of the population has that last name. Jesper was also a very common given name to kids in the 80s, but has since dropped out of fashion. So if two players on that team where to have the same name, Jesper Jensen is close to being the most likely combination.

 

[Minttu]

Now imagine having two Jesper Jensen on the same team.

There are 1 785 Danish men with the name Jesper Jensen.

 

[Klown]

I don't want to start any conspiracy theories here, but I've heard from a pretty realible source that these two guys actually are the same person. In the beginning he did it because the coaches in Finland did not want him to play defenceman, which was his dream. He then moved to Sweden where they would let him. Because of taxing reasons and to keep his patriotic parents happy he kept this a secret and lived under two personas with the same name but with two diffrent nationalities. Now he just plays for Sweden and Finland to troll everyone, and for the ... lulz? Is that what the kids say nowadays? I have no idea how he will pull off the Swe-Fin game tomorrow, though. Probably call in sick to one of the teams.

Yeah, I lied.

PS. Once these two become NHL players, how should we differentiate them from each other? “Finho & Sweho”, “Aho-96 & Aho-97”..?

ForwardAho and DefenseAho? Faho and Daho?

 

[JacobBeans]

Wow. Just wow.

 

[Teukka]

Okay let’s give it a shot too. I think it’s not interesting itself that there are two Sebastian Ahos in both teams. By the same logic should you be interested to calculate the probability that Finland has a player named Jesse Puljujärvi? The thing that is interesting is that there are atleast two players with the same names in both teams.

You are right about the exact name not being the amazing thing here, because yes, there are many, many combinations of Finn-Swede and Swede-Finn names that could face each other. However, the very unlikely name to have in the first place, Sebastian Aho, is a major factor in the improbability, because it actually seems possible for there to be two Mikael Johanssons or Matti Korhonens playing against each other in the same year group. Even that would be very unlikely, though, as your math says. But hey, thanks for the math, even if it was just a small component of this cosmic equation

In order to avoid doing "Teukka math" again, I'll just provide approximate numbers for those who'd like to have a go at calculating the probability of having two Sebastian Ahos in the same high-level junior hockey tournament representing different countries:
- there are roughly 4.7 million Finnish people in Finland, and for the sake of nice roundness, let's say there are 300,000 Finns in Sweden (there are more, but the greatly reduced chance of having a Finnish last name evens this out somewhat), but as we know the approximate number of Ahos for both countries, these numbers don't matter
- Finland has a population of 5.5 million & Sweden 9.6 million
- there are about 7,000 Ahos in Finland & roughly 1,000 in Sweden [thanks Teus; BTW, are they all still alive?]
- there are about 14,000 people with the given name Sebastian in Finland & 35,000 in Sweden; however, the aforementioned middle name factor, the foreign-fanciness factor and the Finnish third name factor make this a very unreliable number that needs to be arbitrarily modified; so let's say there are 4,000 people with the primary name Sebastian in Finland & 18,000 in Sweden.
- there were roughly 49,000 boys born in Sweden in 1996 & 30,000 in Finland in 1997; other U20 age groups surrounding these have very similar numbers
- there are about 39,000 registered ice hockey players under the age of 20 in Finland & 42,000 in Sweden (wish I could find the exact numbers by age group, as some arbitrary dividing needs to be done again)
- ...and out of these, a team of 22 players is selected for each country

I don't expect anyone to go through with this, but in case someone wants to, it's here for the taking [/autism]

 

[SurMartin]

SweAhos father is Finnish, just to make that clear. Half his family root for Finland except when they face SweAho.

 

[covfefe]

If there was an HF equivalent of ****** gold, I'd say you deserve it for this post.

 

[Franck]

971 is the official number for Swedes with Aho as lastname.

This is the source for that number, official Swedish name statistics based on the civil registry.

[thanks Teus; BTW, are they all still alive?]

They were alive on the 31st of December 2013, when the most recent name database was compiled.

 

[Elvs]

Sweden has a population of 9,6 milion people. On birthday.se, there's only two Sebastian Aho's registred. One born in 1996 (the one playing for Sweden) and one born in 1997.

That gives you an idea of how small the chances were that this could happen.

 

[Czech Yourself Pal]

Is Aho a Finnish name or Swedish name? I know it can't be both.

 

[Teukka]

Is Aho a Finnish name or Swedish name? I know it can't be both.

As explained in the starting post (no hard feelings; I know it's a long read), Aho is a Finnish last name, meaning "clearing" or "meadow". The Sebastian Aho on the Swedish team has a Finnish father.

 

[CaptainCatfish]

As explained in the starting post (no hard feelings; I know it's a long read), Aho is a Finnish last name, meaning "clearing" or "meadow". The Sebastian Aho on the Swedish team has a Finnish father.

Clearing, as in clearing the crease. clearing the zone.