How popular is the baby name Joey in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Joey.
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The curious name Phronsie first appeared in the SSA’s baby name data in 1940, and it popped up three more times that decade before leaving the charts for good:
1946: unlisted
1945: 6 baby girls named Phronsie
1944: 5 baby girls named Phronsie
1943: unlisted
1942: unlisted
1941: 8 baby girls named Phronsie
1940: 5 baby girls named Phronsie [debut]
1939: unlisted
1938: unlisted
Where did it come from?
A cute movie character named Phronsie (Sophronia) Pepper. She was the youngest Pepper child in a series of four feature films (Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, Five Little Peppers at Home, Out West with the Peppers, and Five Little Peppers in Trouble) released in 1939 and 1940. Phronsie was played by child actress Dorothy Ann Seese in all four films.
The films were loosely based on the the series of “Five Little Peppers” books by author Margaret Sidney.
The names of the four other Peppers were Ben (Ebenezer), Polly (Mary), Joey (Joel), and Davie (David).
According to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the most popular baby names in England and Wales last year were (again) Amelia and Oliver.
Here are the top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2015:
(Crimea is intriguing, isn’t it? It was used as a baby name in the 1850s, during the Crimean War, but this is the first time I’ve seen it on a modern name list.)
And how did Welsh names fare in Wales specifically?
Here’s another “biggest changes” analysis, but this one is for the England and Wales boy names. (We looked at the girl names yesterday.)
The tables below include two versions of each list. On the left are the top raw-number differences, taking all names into account. On the right are the top ranking differences, taking only the top 1,000 names (roughly) into account.
Biggest Increases in Popularity
Raw Numbers (all names)
Rankings (top 1,000)
Oscar, +1,222 babies
Muhammad, +338
Henry, +320
Joey, +288
Oliver, +280
Teddy, +276
Arthur, +249
Archie, +203
Edward, +185
Theodore, +167
Greyson, +1388 spots
Harvey-Lee, +898
Salahuddin, +759
Bernard, +715
Camden, +686
Kayson, +583
Raife, +531
Buster and Abubakr [tie], +517
Jeffrey and Brax [tie], +499
Emre, +492
I think the rise of Oscar can be attributed, at least in part, to Oscar Pistorius. Can you think of explanations for any of the other names? (I’d especially like to know what gave Buster a boost.)
Biggest Decreases in Popularity
Raw Numbers (all names)
Rankings (top 1,000)
Riley, -1,703 babies
Harry, -1,280
Tyler, -1,104
Alfie, -705
Ethan, -649
Charlie, -532
Joshua, -471
Callum, -467
Ryan, -441
Dylan, -407
Rylan, -577 spots
Ray, -339
Rylie, -277
Jeevan, -276
Darren, -255
Codey, -252
Chace, -242
Dorian, -239
Kaelan, -231
Riley-Jay, -228
A lot of Ry- and Ri- names took hits last year. Is the sound falling out of the favor? What do you think?
Top Debut Name
Gurfateh.
Fewer than 3 baby boys got the name in 2012, but 12 baby boys were named Gurfateh in 2013. (But keep in mind that I only have the full England and Wales baby name lists going back to 2007.)
In a comment on last week’s twin names post, Erin said she’d “love to see some kind of analysis on what percentage of twins are given names that are/aren’t matchy-matchy.”
I do know of one analysis like this. It’s 50 years old, so it’s not exactly up-to-date, but these were the findings:
79% of twins overall had similar names
90% of identical twins had similar names
75% of fraternal twins had similar names
Name researcher Robert Plank published “Names of Twins” in the journal Names way back in 1964. This study was mentioned by H. Edward Deluzain in the essay “Names and Personal Identity” in 1996:
Robert Plank, who studied names of twins, discovered that the names fit into three patterns and that the names in two of the patterns show unmistakable similarity. The most common pattern, which occurred in 62% of the cases Plank studied, was the use of names that begin with the same letter. This included such names as Richard and Robert (Ricky and Robby), Joseph and Judith (Joey and Judy), Louise and Louisa, as well as such names as Paul and Paula and Patrick and Patricia. The second pattern involved names that had different first letters but where similar in sound, rhythm, or rhyme. Such sets of names as Tracy and Stacy, Billy Joe and Penny Sue accounted for 17% of the sets of names. Finally, Plank found that only 21% of the sets of names were different enough from one another to be considered dissimilar. Identical twins, who are always of the same sex and who look so much alike people have trouble telling them apart, fare worse than fraternal twins in the similarity of their names. For, as Plank found, almost 90% of the identical twins had similar names compared to roughly only 75% of the fraternals.
Have any of you seen more recent research on similar/dissimilar names for twins?
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