Step by step, here's how I came to be sitting in an ubergeek's office at SAS one afternoon last week, where I learned which perfectly androgynous name is shared by 173 registered voters in Wake County.

Don't try to figure out that sentence just yet. Bear with me.

Step 1: One of my fellow fact-gatherers goes out after work one recent night and gets liquored up.

Step 2: While doing so, he meets a guy who had some connection to SAS, the global software company based in Cary. (Sorry, but I can't be more specific than "some connection." See "liquored up" above.)

Step 3: My co-worker hears a fascinating story about a SAS software developer who has searched voter rolls to determine the most common name shared by men and women.

Step 4: Upon returning to the office the following day, my co-worker ponders what to do with this esoteric and basically useless bit of information. My name immediately pops into his head.

Step 5: He stops by my desk to tell me about this exciting find. But as he relates the story my co-worker gets the last name wrong of the fellow who allegedly performed the search. (See "liquored up" above.)

Step 6: I call the public relations office at SAS. I have little hope of success because SAS has a long-standing reputation for being weirdly uncooperative with people like me. Or maybe it's just me. It's hard to imagine that anyone could resist my special charm, but occasionally it happens. Further handicapping my effort is the fact that the employee I'm asking about doesn't exist. Remember, I had the wrong last name.

Step 7: The PR guys at SAS track down the software guy anyway, thanks to his unusual first name ("Xan"). I am invited to SAS to meet Xan Gregg, a systems developer. I report to Gregg's office, where we talk about his bizarre exercise in data-mining. I learn that SAS developers are routinely encouraged to use their software as would a customer, and are sometimes given unusual programming challenges. Gregg tells me that he recently instructed the two dozen people in his division to find "the most gender-neutral first name in the Wake County voter database."

Step 8: I nod a lot as Gregg explains things I don't really understand. Boy. Software is hard.

Step 9: Gregg then shows me a chart, fascinating in its simplicity, with the results of the programming challenge. It contains several dozen names shared by men and women in Wake County. For instance, I can tell that the name "Blair" is shared by about 50 women and 30 men, or that "Dale" is shared by about 300 men and 60 women. There are a scant handful of female Brandons, but 700 or so of the male variety. Conversely, there are nearly 800 female Erins, but only maybe a dozen manly versions.

Step 10: It's time for the main event. Gregg explains that in terms of absolute numbers, the name "Terry" is tops. There are more than 900 men and women who share that name. But the ratio is heavily skewed toward men, who represent about three-quarters of all Terrys. So what's the name most evenly divided between men and women? It's "Casey," with more than 80 of each.

Bonus trivia: Gregg tells me that another expedition into voter registration rolls showed that if you have a "Jr." after your name, you're probably a Democrat. But if you have a "III" after your name, you're probably a Republican.

Final word: If you can't use any of this to win a bar bet, then turn over your stool to somebody more worthy.

Get $150+ in coupons in every Sunday N&O. Click here for convenient home delivery.