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A study suggests the layout of a Qwerty keyboard may play a key part in what parents' name their new baby.

The researchers suggest keys on the right hand side are viewed as more positive, while the left is more negative. 

And they found people tend to favour names with letters from the right side of a keyboard - but only since the rise in popularity of the Qwerty keyboard in 1990.

A study led by the University of Chicago says keyboard layouts have influenced how people name babies. They say the rise in popularity of the Qwerty keyboard has meant more names are picked from the right hand side (shown), which are said to be more positive as it is the dominant side for most people

The study into the so-called 'Qwerty effect', reported by Popular Science, was led by psychology professor Dr Daniel Casasanto from the University of Chicago.

Previous research from the Dr Casasanto said that words typed with the right side of the keyboard were generally viewed as more positive than words on the left side.

Scientists believe this is because many people apparently tend to associate 'good' with their dominant side - and most people are right-handed.

The line dividing the keyboard into the left and right side runs between t-y, g-h and b-n.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the research, though, is that the researchers say baby names have been influenced by the rise of the Qwerty keyboard.

Since 1990, which the team defines as the dawn of the 'modern keyboard era', baby names with more right-side keys have apparently been favoured.

The trend doesn't indicate that every name will be left or right-keyboard oriented, but that a general trend can be noticed.

The team computed the so-called 'right side advantage' (RSA) for every name given to more than 100 babies from 1960 to 2012 according to the US Social Security Administration.

This came to a total of 788 unique names.

'We compared the RSA of names coined before and after the massive popularisation of Qwerty,' the researchers write.

In the research the team computed the so-called 'right side advantage' (RSA) for every name given to more than 100 babies from 1960 to 2012 according to the US Social Security Administration. The increase in the number of right-hand-key letters can be seen in this graph from the researchers

However, they note it is difficult to pinpoint the moment the Qwerty keyboard became ubiquitous in American homes, which was where the study focused on.

'We chose the year 1990 as the beginning of the "Qwerty era" based on a survey of technological landmarks,' they write, including the rise in popularity of Windows computers and the Apple Macintosh.

And the results seem to show that, over time, names such as Timothy and John are preferred to the left-hand dominated counterparts like David and Carl. 

As most people are right handed, they pick names from the right hand keys of a keyboard according to the study (stock image shown)/ And the researchers say the trend can be spotted in baby names picked from 1960 to 2012, with the year 1990 starting the beginning of the 'Qwerty era'