MetaChat - I'm fascinated

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12 May 2011

I'm fascinated by the SSA's website of popular baby names, but I didn't know until today that you can download a text file of all names with 5 or more occurrences.→[More:] I'm looking at the data now and there are some real doozies. Yunique, Jenry, Jjesus. I was glad to see that Dorito was not on the list.

post by: ThePinkSuperhero at: 09:19 | 22 comments

It's also very interesting to see the exact count for each name. The two most popular names last year were Isabella (22,731) and Jacob (21,875).

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 12 May | 09:20

They also include the gender breakdown, and some names have a count for male and female. Joy was used 615 times for girls and 16 times for boys.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 12 May | 09:23

1,758,981 female babies born in 2010 (of those with names that occur 5 times or more).
19,697 different female baby names.
~10% of female babies have the top 12 names.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 12 May | 12:43

WILL THE SAME BE TRUE OF MALE BABIES

LET'S TRY IT

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 12 May | 12:44

IT IS IT IS

1,898,341 male babies born in 2010 (of those with names that occur 5 times of more)
14,139 different male baby names.
~10% of male babies have the top 12 names.

More male babies, less male baby names!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 12 May | 12:48

28 boys named Barack! 25 girls named Palin!

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 12 May | 13:42

Looking at the history of Hillary now- peaked in popularity in 1992 as 132nd most popular name, then dropped off sharply over the next 10 years- wasn't in the top 1000 in 2002 or 2003 (or 2009 or 2010).

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 12 May | 13:44

I am going to continue posting in this thread until someone finds it interesting. Or until I die, whichever comes first.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 12 May | 13:45

I would like to have a job in which new parents present their infants to me and I decree their names.

posted by rainbaby 12 May | 13:55

I think this link is a real interesting find. Just haven't found time to comment.

I have looked up my sons' name for their birth years. There were ~380 boys born in U.S. in 1999 with my oldest's name, and apparently >=1 but <=4 boys born with my youngest's name in 2004.

posted by danostuporstar 12 May | 13:58

It is interesting, teeps. I'm a bit of a name geek myself. I get laughed at because I take a lot of care in naming my characters in World of Warcraft. Names are important.

posted by deborah 12 May | 14:00

349 babies were named Deborah last year.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 12 May | 14:13

14 boys were named Baby. 12 girls were named Baby.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 12 May | 14:14

How many babies named Rain?

posted by rainbaby 12 May | 14:29

101 baby girls in 2010 were named Rain. 29 baby boys in 2010 were named Rain.

Similar names include: Rainbow (F, 11) and Rainy (F, 23).

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 12 May | 14:50

My friends had a little girl they called Rain.

posted by gaspode 12 May | 15:25

The popularity of the first name 'Joran' collapsed as a result of a high profile murderer with that name.
Contrast this with how the name Adolf only tapered away after the 60s.

posted by jouke 12 May | 16:03

When I named my son in 1986, his name was unusual enough that it didn't even show up on the radar (less than 5 occurances in British Columbia that year). A few years later, it started creeping up. Last year it was the second most popular boy's name in the Province. Now, I don't take the entire credit, but it's certainly possible, right?

Either that or I'm just slightly ahead of the curve or something. Erm.

posted by jokeefe 12 May | 16:51

I am suddenly consumed with curiousity over what has happened to the 9,249 other Janets born the same year as I was. I have probably met only 2 or 3 of them.

posted by JanetLand 12 May | 17:42

By the way, jouke -- 24 babies in the U.S. last year were named "Dutch."

posted by JanetLand 12 May | 18:24

jokeefe, my mum takes the blame for making Deborah popular in the 1960s. When I was named that it seemed there weren't many around, but, apparently, lots of other mothers thought the same thing. My brothers are all named popular, but classic names. Name ten classic male names and I bet you get all of them.

Part of mum's thinking was regular, classic names (that they're all also biblical was coincidence although she was an active Episcopalian at the time) with family names as middle names. That way, if we didn't like our first names there was always a bit different (but not too different) middle name to use.

posted by deborah 12 May | 18:59

And in 1966 there were 16,250 Deborahs born and it was in the top 20 names. It dropped out of the top 20 in 1967. It peaked in 1955 at #2 with 52,303. But the most Deborahs were born in 1954 with 54,661 born. Those stats are leaving out Debi, Debbie, Debby, Debra, Debrah, Debora, etc.

So it seems she was at the bottom end of the curve. I've never met any Deborah who were significantly older than I; they've all been from the mid-1960s. Odd.

posted by deborah 12 May | 19:10

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