A Rose. . .
One of the blogs I read linked to the recently posted list of the most popular names for 2007. It will come as no surprise to most of you that I care about names. I have a mom that cares deeply about names, so I come by it naturally.
After looking at the the list for a bit, I remembered that Sherry had recently showed me the Social Security site where you can look up the popularity of a name and other stats about names (most popular names by state, decade, etc). So, I proceeded to spend much time last night looking up lots of names.
I have two brothers and two sisters and none of our five names have ever been (in the last 100 years, at least) in the top 1000 (the only partial exception is my sister Landen, whose name has been in the top 1000 in recent years for boys, but never girls). I like unusual names – I was pleased to see that the name we like the best for a future child has also never been in the top 1000 (Bart hasn’t been either, if you were wondering).
Anyway, the site just fascinates me. I love seeing if someone with a popular name had that name before it got popular, after it started losing popularity, or was named it in the heyday of that name.
Does your name show up on the list? Are you too old, too young, or just right for your name?
The highest mine got was 696 in 1999. But it was spelled “Shyann”. It actually really irks me when I hear other people are named Sheyenne. That’s MY name, Darnit! Actually I remember being in 3rd grade and hearing another girl on the playground being called Sheyenne, and I didn’t know her, but I decided that I did NOT like her.
Looks like Alana is rounding out the top 100 for the first time. Weird! I rarely ever meet people with the same name as me.
my name peaked in 1950 with a rank of 18th. Not shocking, as most people I know named Janet are my mom’s age!
What are your siblings all named? And I suppose your future child’s name is a secret? I’m off to look up ours…
Thank you for sharing the site. It is a very strange thing, when my name (for the years I was growing up) ranked in the top 25, but I’ve probably never met more than 15 people with “my” name. Wonder where they lived??? 🙂
I posted this in my sidebar recently. I’m Jennifer, so, well, yes. And my husband is Michael, so, um, yes again.
And we love Addison Sloan for a girl. And I love Kyle Michael for a boy. (After Kyle Field. PATHETIC MUCH?)
E-mail me your name. I promies not to steal it as we already have names!
I am obsessed with baby names! Funny.
This is a really cool site for seeing popularity and trends and all that good stuff.
http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html
I’m a Nicole. The name peaked in the 80s at number 8 so I guess I’m just the right age for the name. (You’ll probably love this http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html)
Thanks for the plug to me again! That’s two posts in a row. I’m practically famous.
Also, as we’ve discussed, I’m too young for my age, and I love it that way. The only Sherry I’ve ever had a class with was old enough to be my mom.
My name just barely eeked past 200 to 192 but it was a little before my time. This seems about right to me. I have a unique name, but it’s certainly isn’t made up or anything. It’s fairly “traditional,” just uncommon.
Don’t even get me started about baby names. We religiously use these kinds of sites when picking names. I think a name should be unique and M actually thinks it’s a little bit of a negative. (His name has gotten less and less popular over the years until it was #263 the year he was born and he did not enjoy having a unique name like I did.) You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find names kinda like mine that we like. Everyone’s heard of them and knows how to say them, but they’re not very popular. I almost decided against “Claire” because it’s actually been in the top 100 (peaked at 82 the year before Claire was born, which didn’t show up until after we named her, but fortunately has gone down since then), but M and I had to compromise somehow. Although in the past it’s been super popular (peaked at #11 in the 70’s!), apparently we’re the only weirdos who still like the name “Scott” because the year he was born it was #253. So Claire will be more common that I would have liked and Scott will be too young for his name. The 2 baby girl names we’re fighting over for a possible next time around are both names that used to be very popular but now are both below #300. Seems like using names that will make our kid “too young” for their name is a compromise that works for us…
I forgot to mention too that BabyCenter does their own polls and while I doubt they’re as accurate, they do combine the same name with different spellings, which the SSA doesn’t do. It’s interesting since some names get a lot of different spellings and it skews the data. I personally don’t consider a unique spelling to count as a unique name.
http://www.babycenter.com/0_top-baby-names-through-history_1508595.bc
Just the years in bold are their data.
I was born at the height of Kristi’s, but it was like #102 the year I was born. Gwen’s name is like in the 700s, but it was probably higher back in the 1920’s or something 🙂 I don’t think anyone has ever named their kid Bentley (though everyone name’s their kid Ben or Benjamin…so it’s kind of a wash). Fun there is another fun. This is the best baby name popularity site for me … http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html it shows the trends really well.
My weirdo name is never on any of those lists. Which is fine. It was when I really wanted personalized magnets, mugs, pencils, or barrettes that it was really annoying. Not that I’m still bitter…
Because of that, if I have children, I am staying with pretty tame names. Teachers will know how to pronounce it and what the gender is, darn it. If I wasn’t already convinced from my childhood, JG’s horror stories from the first day of school sealed the deal.
Admittedly, I hate that my name is now in that top 20 range. Hate it! I am all about unique, older names…although I do like them to be real names, not made up ones. My own personal thing.
Nathan has gotten steadily more popular over the years, apparently, getting up into the 30s of late. Not surprising. But I’m ever so glad to see that our newborn son’s name (Keston) isn’t anywhere in the top 1000 names. YAY!
I was born about 10 years after the peak of my name’s popularity, but it was still #66 the year I was born, so I guess I’m not unusual. Still, there was never another Melanie in my class at school until I reached 7th grade.
My name’s not in the top 100 anymore, but it was the year I was born. Right now, four of my relatives’ names are on the top 100 list. And, sadly, so are a couple of the names that Bawb and I want to give our children.
The name ‘Lisa’ is hardly ever in the top 10 but had a brief stay at the top in the 60s. James’ of course has always been popular, but hit its peak, I think around 1950. Our first girl will probably be named Ruth which hasn’t been in the top 10 since the early 1900s.
Interesting! my name was 16th on the list when I was born — since then it has always been in the top 100…. UNTIL the past two years! interesting for sure! another interesting face is it wasn’t really even on the list until 1945.
So then I looked up my favorite name for my 1st girl…isn’t on the list! nice!
My name didn’t make the list 🙁 How sad. But all the names of our future children did! Most in the top 20. Now we just have to get our house and have a family!
What kids names have you thought of?
That’s cool! I was 64 out of 100 in my year and Seth was 99 out of 100. haha. That was really fun, thank you for sharing!!
I was born in 1985 but my name didn’t really get popular until a few years later. It has hovered in the teens and 20s for the past 15 years or so. Most Kaylas I meet are younger than me.
Weston has never dipped below 347. I think we made a good choice. And now I’m really curious what your baby name choice is..
I’ve looked at that site many times before too. Cohen’s name wasn’t on the list until the year he was born where it started at 650, and was at 415 in 2006, just 2 years later. I’m afraid that it’s going to become more popular, and I really don’t want it to go up on the ranks! Luckily, Sandler is still not on the list, and the other names that I think I would want for any other boys we have are not on the list either! I’m curious too as to what names you’re thinking of for future kids… I like you and your siblings’ names!
I don’t think my name exists. Any where. In fact just today B was saying that he didn’t think anyone would name their kid “Ralphie” because they felt sorry for me. Dang.
“Lucy” is climbing. Grrrrr.
And “Erin” is falling. Whew.
I was surprised at how popular mine name was when I was born because while Katie is a popular nickname, most people are named Katherine. Interesting!