Here’s a little-known but very interesting fact about email spam. The first letter of your email address often determines the amount of spam that is hitting your inbox daily.

Dr Richard Clayton at University of Cambridge analyzed (PDF report) over half a billion spam email messages and made this conclusion:

Email addresses starting with popular alphabets like ‘A’, ‘M’, ‘S’, ‘R’ or ‘P’ are much more likely to receive spam than addresses that begin with uncommon letters like ‘Y’, ‘Q’ or ‘Z’.

So if your name is Maria and you’re getting more email spam that your cousin Yaro, you now know the reason why - blame your name. Thanks Pratham.

Related: How to Manage Email Overload