A two-part study consisting of: (1) an examination of the links between performance on emergent reading and writing tasks and both name-writing abilities and name length, based on data from 296 preschool children, 51 to 65 months old, in a moderate sized city in north Florida; and (2) an examination of the relationship between name length and both alphabet knowledge and spelling, based on data from 104 preschool children, 37 to 71 months old, from a moderate sized city in western Pennsylvania