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Last names should carry health warnings, a new study suggests.

New research shows that patients named Brady are more likely than the general population to require pacemakers.

To see whether a person's name might influence their health, researchers looked at whether people with the last name "Brady" had a higher incidence of bradycardia (slow heart rate) and "whether they were Brady by name and brady by nature," according to a news release.

The study used data from a hospital database and the percentage of the population with the surname Brady was determined through use of online telephone listings in Dublin, Ireland, between 2007 and 2013.

Researchers found that there were 579 Bradys listed in total and 1012 pacemakers were fitted during this time.

The findings revealed that the proportion of pacemaker recipients among patients with the last name Brady was significantly higher than among non-Bradys.

Researchers said that the latest study is the first to demonstrate a link between people's names and their health.

The findings are published in the Christmas edition of The BMJ.