I only recently noticed that Behind the Name, one of my favorite websites for baby name definitions, has a page called United States Popularity Analysis — a “computer-created analysis of the United States top 1000 names for the period 1880 to 2012.”
The page has some interesting top ten lists. Here are three of them:
Most Volatile
| Boy Names | Girl Names |
|---|---|
| 1. Elvis 2. Brooks 3. Santiago 4. Lincoln 5. Ernie 6. Wyatt 7. Quincy 8. Rogers 9. Alec 10. Dexter | 1. Juliet 2. Lea 3. Justine 4. Martina 5. Felicia 6. Delilah 7. Selina 8. Lonnie 9. Magdalena 10. Katy |
Biggest Recoveries
| Boy Names | Girl Names |
|---|---|
| 1. Silas 2. Isaiah 3. Caleb 4. Emmett 5. Jordan 6. Josiah 7. Harrison 8. Ezra 9. Jason 10. Jesus | 1. Ella 2. Stella 3. Sadie 4. Sophie 5. Isabella 6. Lily 7. Hannah 8. Isabelle 9. Sophia 10. Lilly |
Biggest Flash-in-the-Pans
| Boy Names | Girl Names |
|---|---|
| 1. Dewey 2. Woodrow 3. Dale 4. Barry 5. Rick 6. Greg 7. Roosevelt 8. Shannon 9. Kim 10. Darrin | 1. Debra 2. Lori 3. Tammy 4. Pamela 5. Tracy 6. Cheryl 7. Beverly 8. Dawn 9. Diane 10. Kathy |
I wonder what the formulas were. I’d love to try the same analysis on the SSA’s full list, using raw numbers instead of rankings. Wonder how much overlap there’d be…