In response to my post on girl names with A-endings, both Kelly and SkyeRhyly brought up the trendy n-endings for boy names, so let’s take a look at that today. (Thanks for the idea!)
On the SSA’s list of boy names for 2010, I found…
- 4,753 boy names with n-endings (out of 14,140 total)
- 688,677 boy babies with n-ending names (out of 1,898,382 total)
So 33.6% of the boy names had n-endings, and these names were given to 36.6% of the babies on the boys’ list. N-endings for more than a third of the names and more than a third of the babies, in other words. Impressive.
In 1930, the numbers were 17.5% (names) and 13.9% (babies).
And now girl the names:
- 2,555 girl names with n-endings (out of 19,698 total)
- 246,631 girl babies with n-ending names (out of 1,759,010 total)
Not quite as impressive — just 13.0% of the girl names had n-endings, and these names were given to 14.0% of the babies on the girls’ list.
Slightly up from 1930, when the numbers were 7.9% (names) and 10.7% (babies).
Update, Apr. 2014: Here’s more on this topic, plus a great gif: The meteoric rise of boys’ names ending in ‘n’.