US vs UK :: 1904

Inspiration :: Herman (art by Nada Herman)

1904 takes us into the 21st Century - Edwardian Britain and a period of change. Again we see more nicknamey names in the US chart for girls. There are two types of boys names I see standing out -the clunky Ronald, Gerald, Clyde and Eugene in both charts and the 'posh' names like Hubert and Percival in the UK charts that have too many connotations for use nowadays.

Names that were in the US chart but not the UK chart in 1904

Names that were in the UK chart but not the US chart in 1904

Power and Popularity :: Part 1

Inspiration :: Oliver (picture from Oliver Twist)

Often one of the first criteria a couple have when choosing a name is that it ‘isn’t too popular’. Often we look at names that are within a certain rank – like looking at names below the top 100 or top 1000. But using the ranks as a guide can be deceiving. For one thing, the birth counts for boys and girls are different. The name Oliver (1^st in 2014 for boys) was given to 6649 babies but Amelia (1^st in 2014 for girls) was given to 5327 babies. In this first post in a series on the statistics of baby name popularity, I’m going to show you what popular and unpopular really look like in the real world.

The chart below shows the proportion of babies named out of each section.

You can see that the amount of babies given a name from the top 100 is very similar to the number of babies given a name from outside the top 1000. The remaining third shows a breakdown of the number of babies given a name ranked between 100 and 1000. I was really surprised by the number of people that choose a name outside the top 1000. This means that it is popular to be unusual so even though your child may be the only person in their class with their name, it won’t stand out as much because most other people will have an unusual name of their own. But this is okay because most parents don’t want their child to be standing out for a ‘weird’ name – they just don’t want their child to be 1 of 3 Emily’s in a class.

Talking of classes, I made a chart to show what the name popularities would look like in a class of 30. To do this I worked out the percentage of babies born out of the total babies born for each 100 section of the chart. I then found that percentage out of 30. It uses the same colour code as the pie chart above.

If your 2014 born child was in a classroom there would be:

9 children with names within the top 100

3 children with names ranked from 100-200

2 children with names ranked from 200-300

1 child with a name ranked from 300-400

1 child with a name ranked from 400-500

1 child with a name ranked from 500-600

1 child with a name ranked from 600-700

1 child with a name ranked from 700-1000

11 children with a name outside the top 1000

Of course this is only a model and can’t perfectly predict every classroom. There are going to be some clubs and groups that children are part with like minded parents. This means that there may be more of a certain type of name. I wonder whether this makes parents more fussy about popularity – they have a skewed view because the other parents they associate with are naming their children similar names. When, in the big scheme of things, the names they are choosing are not that popular.

Alphabet Popularity

Inspiration :: Victor (painting by Victor Vasarely)

Names have popularity patterns; but their beginning and ending letters also have peaks and troughs. Here is a chart showing the letters that peaked in each decade.

Year	1st Letter	Last Letter
1880	e f g h l o w	e m a u
1890
1900	m	z
1910	v
1920	b	d s t
1930	r
1940	d p	p
1950	k s t	f g l k y
1960		c
1970	c j	w
1980		r q
1990	n	o b
2000	a	v j n x

Popular Beginnings

Below is a graph showing the year that each letter of the alphabet peaked as the first letter of a name. The letters without results are those that haven't really had a peak in popularity.

Names with Popular Beginnings

These names all have the popular initial for a year they were in the top 50. Eg. The letter V peaked in 1910 and this is also a year where Victor was in the top 50. 

1880

Elizabeth, Florence, Ellen, Emily, Eliza, Hannah, Gertrude, Harriet, Frances, Fanny, Eleanor, Esther, Grace, Louisa, Lily, Lillian, Laura, Emma.

George, Henry, Frederick, Ernest, Edward, Herbert, Harry, Frank, Fred, Francis, Edwin, Harold, Edgar, Horace, Hugh, Edmund, Lewis, Willie, Leonard, Walter, William.

1890

There were no letters that peaked during this decade.

1900

Mary, Margaret, Mabel, Marjorie, Muriel, Minnie, Maud.

Michael.

1910

Violet, Vera.

Victor.

1920

Beryl, Betty,

Bernard.

1930

Rita, Rosemary.

Ronald, Raymond, Roy, Richard, Reginald.

1940

Dorothy, Diane, Doreen, Patricia.

David, Peter, Derek, Paul, Patrick, Phillip.

1950

Susan, Sandra, Kathleen, Sheila, Karen, Shirley.

Stephen, Keith, Kevin, Steven, Thomas, Kenneth, Terence, Trevor, Timothy, Stuart.

1960

There were no letters that peaked for a first initial during this decade.

1970

Caroline, Jenna, Jessica, Catherine, Joanna, Clare, Joanne, Charlotte, Jennifer, Claire

Christopher, James, Jason, Jonathan, Craig, Carl, Colin, Justin, Christian.

1980

Jennifer

1990

Natasha, Nicole.

Nathan, Nicholas.

2000

Amy, Amelia, Abigail, Alice, Amber, Abbie, Aimee.

Alexander, Alfie, Adam, Aaron, Archie, Alex.

Popular Endings
Below is a graph showing the year that each letter of the alphabet peaked as the last letter of a name. The letters without results are those that haven't really had a peak in popularity.

Names with Popular Endings

These names all have the popular last letter for a year they were in the top 50. Eg. The letter A peaked in 1880 and this is also a year where Laura was in the top 50.

1880

Grace, Amelia, Nellie, Laura, Isabella, Maria, Bertha, Clara, Martha, Louisa, Eliza, Emma, Ada, Alice, Florence, Annie, Catherine, Gertrude, Kate, Rose, Beatrice, Minnie, Charlotte, Jessie, Caroline.

William, Tom, Willie, Bertie, Horace, George.

1890

There were no names in the top 50 with the peaked letter in this decade.

1900

There were no names in the top 50 with the peaked letter in this decade.

1910

There were no names in the top 50 with the peaked letter in this decade.

1920

Frances, Iris, Violet, Phyllis, Winifred, Gladys, Doris, Margaret.

Clifford, Herbert, Francis, Bernard, Douglas, Richard, Reginald, Donald, Raymond, Alfred, Harold, Leonard, Ernest, David, Dennis, Charles, Albert, Edward, Robert, Ronald, Thomas, James.

1930

There were no names in the top 50 with the peaked letter in this decade.

1940

Phillip

1950

Carol, Wendy, Shirley, Lesley, Mary.

Michael, Paul, Nigel, Neil, Jeffrey, Timothy, Patrick, Derek, Gary, Barry, Mark, Geoffrey, Anthony.

1960

There were no names in the top 50 with the peaked letter in this decade.

1970

Andrew, Matthew.

1980

Christopher, Peter, Alexander, Oliver.

1990

Jacob

2000 

Madison, Erin, Caitlin, Lauren, Megan.

Benjamin, Ethan, Dylan, Ryan, Ben, Cameron, Nathan, Owen, Kieran, Aaron, Brandon, Alex, Harrison.

Special Names

These are the names that had both a popular first letter and a popular last letter.

1880
Eliza, Florence, Gertrude, Louisa, Laura, Emma, Grace.
Horace, George, William.

1920
Bernard

1940
Phillip

1950
Shirley
Timothy

2000
Alex, Aaron.

Through the Decades :: 1 syllable, female

Inspiration :: Dawn

1 syllable names have been present throughout history - pretty, unfussy, usually nickname-proof and with less spelling and pronunciation problems, they are a popular choice for many parents.

Below is a chart showing all the one syllable names in the top 100 for each decade. The names are listed in their order of popularity. For example, you can see how Ann is the top 1 syllable name in 1860 and 1870 but by 1890, it is only the 4th most popular one syllable name for girls.

From 1860 to 1890, the names are those that we would call 'pretty but ordinary' today. Apart from Maud who now bears the weight of stigma, they are still used. Jane and Ann took the No. 1 spot whereas names like Grace were less popular. This has been reversed today - Grace is at No. 1 , Ann and Jane are not even in the top 1000 although they are still seen as plain and ordinary.

From 1914 to 1944, there was an influx of new 1 syllable names. We see a mix of the Victorian favourites with these new, 'modern' names like Jean, Jill, Joy and Joyce, J was definitely the initial letter in vogue. 1954 claims the longest list of 1 syllable names. Lynne, Lynn, Gail, Dawn and Kay entered the top 100 - the names we see as extremely dated today. 

After 1964, the number of 1 syllable names starts declining. Claire becomes the new popular name, Ann finally leaves the top 100. By 2004, many of the names are 1 syllable word names like Brooke, Jade and Faith. This is still the pattern we see today. Sky, Hope and Rae (the modern 1 syllable names) sit amongst old favourites from the 1800s like Kate, Grace, Ruth and May. I think that we will see another rise of 1 syllable names as we borrow even more words from other languages and if the nicknames culture continues. Maybe someday, even Maud will arrive back in our Birth Announcements.

Below are the 1 syllable names currently in the UK top 1000.

Name Style

Inspiration :: Caroline (painting by Caroline Ashwood)

We often discuss names using words such as ‘vintage’, ‘modern’ or ‘frilly’ when discussing names. People often describe their style as ‘old fashioned’, ‘arty’ or ‘unusual’. But most of these terms are highly subjective. When researching ‘classic’ names I found everything from Waldo and Wolfgang to Mary and Caroline and even greater number of variations on how people defined a ‘classic’ name. Some thought that all ‘old-fashioned’ names were classics and some ‘classics’ mentioned hadn’t ever entered the top 100.

This lead me to want to devise a system of categorising naming style. There are many quizzes you can do but they are often based on non-naming questions, have confusing categories and have highly subjective lists of names that ‘fit’ each category. I thought about the elements of a name that I could measure – a similar idea to shape, colour, texture etc. - the elements of art.

Names may first seem like a bundle of letters with the elements of phonology (sound) and length. Then you can research the meaning, the etymology (where the name came from and the components that make it up) and celebrity usage or cultural connotations. The third group of elements would look at its birth (when the name was first used), past popularity and current popularity.

My system takes the sound and length of the name and the past popularity of the name to create 16 main categories and 4 side categories (which I haven’t published on the page yet) of name style. I tried to pick elements that were easily quantifiable and that seem the main components of peoples’ favourite names lists. I classified the names according to sound and length and then looked at the point in which they peaked from the 1880s to the 2010s (using NameVoyager as it is the only tool to do this – even though it is based on the American charts). The downside of it is that, in a decade, the system will seem out of date but I am working on updating the system so that this will not matter.

Another problem I had was naming the categories. I had made sure that it was the same system for male and female names (unlike my first attempts) as we continue to see gender-bending and gender-equality as themes in today’s naming culture. I also did not want to make any category sound more positive or negative than any other (eg. if I had used the word ‘dated’ which has a negative connotation). The popularity labels were harder. I worked on the rule that an antique was something older than 100 years and vintage meant that something was older than 50 years. Retro has many meanings but it sounded much better than the ‘early modern’ label that was originally for the ‘retro’ category. The current popularity labels are not really part of the system but I thought it would be useful for those who would prefer a more popular or less popular name.

So if you would like to look for names that are similar in style, visit the ‘Name Style’ page. I have sorted all of the names from the UK top 1000 2014 and am now sorting names not in the top 1000. You should find an explanation of the category names also.

100 year rule :: 1914 and 2014

Inspiration :: Mary (St Mary's Lighthouse, No. 1 in 1914)

Name nerds use the term '100 year rule' to explain the pattern of name popularity where popular names from 100 years ago become popular again. But how accurate is this 'rule'? I'm going to look at the similarities between the 2014 and 1914 chart to discover this.

Names that were in the top 100 of 1914 and 2014.

27% of names from the top 100 of 1914 were in the top 100 of 2014.

Many of these names are those we would consider 'classic' but is this just because they are historical and are popular at the moment? 

Names in the top 100 of 1914 and the top 1000 (but not top 100) of 2014.

40% of names from the top 100 of 1914 were in the top 1000 (but not top 100) of 2014.

67% of names from the top 100 of 1914 were in the top 1000 of 2014.

These names are what people would call 'vintage'. They are the comeback names that seem fresh and exciting after being uncommon for 100 years.

Names from 1914 that were not in the top 1000 in 2014.

33% of names from the top 100 of 1914 were not in the top 1000 of 2014.

These names are the names that people would say were too 'granny-ish' and would be unlikely to return to our charts. However, I think some such as Marion, Bessie and Freda could make a comeback - just a bit later than their 100 year schedule.

I do not have enough data to comment whether the '100 year rule' works or is just a myth but hopefully, when I have data from other years and from the boys' names, I will be able to create some graphs and charts to reveal the truth.