Baby Name Statistics, Part 2

Examples of "invented" names that have had some success recently are the set of names ending in the -aden sound, 9 of which rocketed out of obscurity and rank ranging from 7 to 103 for 2009. I hate all of them, but their success is admirable (at least at the present). It remains to be seen whether they have any staying power--I suspect they do not. My opinion is probably a function of the names I grew up with, as anyone's would be; I'm sure the seven Jadens and fourteen variants on Aiden in your local high school's graduating class of 2028 are going to think names like Stacy and Kristen and Amanda sound horrendously dated.

This discussion brings us to the meat of the project: it's easy to guess what the "best" names might be, but what about the worst? For your ridicule, I present the ten worst names in the history of Social Security for boys and girls, presented in reverse order:

Boys

1. Ronal Ronal? What?


2. Ricci What if little Ricci grew up to marry a fine woman named Christina?


3. Tyreke Similar names that are more popular than Tyreke: Tyreek, Tyrik, Tyriq, Tyrique


4. Knox Yeah, like the fort. A born security guard.


5. Archer Names that describe what you do are last names, guys. Still, this one has that gonzo journalism charm that you just can't put a price on.


6. Destry I assume this has to do with the Jimmy Stewart film. Either that, or the Southern version of noted arms dealer James McCullen Destro XXIV.


7. Kunta For reference, Toby is 2171 spots above Kunta. Guess the nice white man really was looking out for him.


8. Alexande It's pronounced Alexan-duh. Although it might be a German-style combination of Alex and Andy.


9. Jemal It's like Jamal, with an "e". It's interesting that an innocuous letter transposition is so unpopular.


10. Christop What were they going for? Christopher? Christoph? It's almost like they were using a computer system that had an 8-character input limit. I can imagine people constantly harassing this guy at work by ending sentences prematurely. "Hey Christop, would you deliver these reports to"

Girls

1. Sheilah You know, other than the egregious extra letter, this one isn't that objectionable.


2. Clarisa How could anyone who grew up when Clarissa Explains It All dislike Clarisa? Well, you see, it looks dumb without the doubled "s".


3. Sonji Sewn-gee? Sahn-gee? Or perhaps it's pronounced "Sonya".


4. Channing I knew somebody named Channing who was a girl. Of course, the worst Channing is a dude (fuck you, Channing Tatum).


5. Halley This one has the added benefit of referencing a long period comet. Loser astronomers.


6. Norita Hell yes. It's so close that I can forgive the N instead of the M. Wax on; wax off.


7. Vivienne This is pretentious as hell. "Vivian?" "UGH. NO."


8. Elizabet Why would someone in the hospital let you do this? I think it's pretty amazing that removing the "h" drops this down 3056 spaces on the all-time list.


9. Yulissa ...what is this? It's like they started with Julia, then went with the Ukrainian form, then combined it with Melissa. Wait, maybe that's the joke: ME-lissa -> YU-lissa.


10. Analia Ah, named for the mythical land of

So there you have it. I caution you that the power rating tends to cluster the names that only appear on one annual list at the very bottom of the rankings due to dividing by a very small fraction. My personal favorites that were left out:

Girls

1. Bethzy Reading this out loud causes me to chuckle uncontrollably. "HI IM BETHZY :D"


2. Yamilex Probably some Nahuatl derivation. Reads like American English for "a moderate-strength prescription drug for genital herpes".


3. Romaine "Oh, she's beautiful. She looks just like that salad I had yesterday! I know what we'll name her"


4. Dimple The only justification for this is that you named her on the spot right after birth, and after the first thing you saw. Also, you're a fucking idiot


5. Gaylene "Gaylene Stevenson?" "Here." "Do you go by Gaylene, or is there a nickname you prefer?"


6. Concepcion Possibly the most literal meaning for a name.


7. Betsey "IM BETSEY IM BETHZY'S FRIEND XD"


8. Tea Well, at least no one will be offended.


9. Walter They must be counting Wendy Carlos.


10. Alpha She was the firstborn. The next two were Junior and Trey.

Boys

1. Kinte Man, come on.


2. Westin If he's fat they can call him "The Westin Grand"


3. Amin "You know who was awesome? Idi Amin."


4. Marilyn Why would somebody do this?


5. Hung I think that's kind of an unfair burden to put on your kid.


6. Benjiman The superhero with the power to get beat up


7. Clearence Oh, the difference one letter makes.


8. Babyboy Concepcion? I stand corrected.


9. Cain Not exactly the most popular biblical name. Surely you could pick someone a little better than the guy who invented murder?


10. Infant Fuck you, America

God damn, some people are stupid.

Baby Name Statistics, Part 1

My other blog, JRI, deals with a very serious application of statistics: football. Because I love stats so much, I will occasionally do some goofy-ass project in my personal time, and this is one of those. It is an area that is much less serious than football: naming your children. I resolved to analyze the Social Security Administration's annually updated database of most popular baby names.

Registration for Social Security numbers became compulsory in 1937, which means that every individual born in the United States since then has had their name preserved on the rolls of SSA. From a statistical standpoint, the data available to me is not so much a sample as it is literally the entire population of data points.

I took the largest sample size (the top 1000 names for each year for each sex) compiled the samples into a spreadsheet, and calculated descriptive statistics for each name in the 2009 list--mean, mode, median, standard deviation. These were measures across the entire period 1937-2009. Not satisfied with that, I then obtained the complete set of unique names that appeared in the top 1000 over that same period and calculated the same descriptive statistics.

Finally, I devised a power statistic that is intended to measure popularity and consistency:



Mu and sigma are used in their standard sense to represent mean and standard deviation, alpha and beta are arbitrary weights (in this case 0.5 and 0.5), and rho is the percentage of the total lists that the name is present on.

I present the top ten names for boys and girls that are least likely to sound stupid as hell in 10 years, or alternatively, least likely to get your kid made fun of:

Girls

1. Elizabeth


2. Mary


3. Katherine


4. Rebecca


5. Maria


6. Sarah


7. Anna


8. Catherine


9. Jacqueline


10. Laura

Boys

1. Michael


2. David


3. James


4. John


5. Joseph


6. William


7. Daniel


8. Robert


9. Thomas


10. Anthony

It is interesting to note that 7 of the boy names are biblical; Anthony is Roman; and William (Germanic) and Robert (French transliteration of a Germanic name) date back to the Norman conquest of England.

Likewise, Elizabeth, Mary, Sarah, and Rebecca are biblical; Anna is the Latin form of Hannah, a biblical name; Maria is both the Latin form of Mary and the feminine form of Marius (a Roman name); Laura is the feminine form of the Latin laurus; Katherine/Catherine is the name of one of the first Christian saints; and Jacqueline is the feminine form of Jacques, which derives from Jacob...a biblical name.

I can conjecture that new names have some difficulty displacing the traditional biblical names, and that they also have trouble gaining a similar level of vast acceptance. It is also important to note that biblical names largely dominated the popularity rankings for the first several decades of the lists, with Michael, James, and Mary in particular sitting atop the list for years at a time. Many of the other names spent decades near the top of the list; James and Joseph spent one year between them out of the top 20.