The Name Game

[BigJon]

Jack, Jack, bo-back,
Banana-fana fo-fack
Fee-fi-mo-mack
Jack!

No not that one, try this one It's a visual representation of the prevalence of first names throughout the last century. A neat web application and neat to see where you stack up.

[BigJon]

The developer of this application. (Requires JAVA by the way.)

[piqaboo]

US based?
Funny, our girl is a girl of her time. We dont know any others with her name, in childhood, but it was in the top25 the year before she was born, so we will know them, oh yes we will. Sigh. There were always two and often three with my name in class. I was always differentiated as "Big" piqaboo. Never bothered me, but it always annoyed soemone to be "Little" piqaboo.

[Shapley]

Well, I didn't find my name in the list, nor my Ooctavius or Rasputin.

(Ookay, okay, I'm kidding. My brothers aren't really named Octavius and Rasputin.)

Interestingly, Octavia is in the list, even though Octavius isn't. Is there some genetic reason that eighth children tend to be female, or are people simply ignoring the meaning of the name?

[jamiebk]

Jack, Jack, bo-back,
Banana-fana fo-fack
Fee-fi-mo-mack
Jack!

No not that one, try this one It's a visual representation of the prevalence of first names throughout the last century. A neat web application and neat to see where you stack up.

VERY cool!!

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Yes, very cool.

I never had to be differentiated in any of my classrooms (even though they were very crowded) because I was always the only Selma in the school, until high school. There was one other there, but she was a year ahead of me and physically very dissimilar so nobody was ever confused. There were always multiple Lindas, though, and that baby name wizard illustrates why :yikes:

The kids' names came out about where I expected, though. Not too weird, not too common, dignified name with lots of available nicknames.

I'm saving that link, playing with it some more.

[jamiebk]

My given name "James", was/is very "WASP-ish" and seems to have fallen out of favor according to the chart. All during my childhood, my family called me Jamie...a name I did not like or use during my school years. It was perceived as girlish/weak in an environment that could be very meanspirited to anyone for even lesser reasons. The name is quite common in Scotland (my heritage). Later in life, I began using it, although in the work world, I am referred to as "Jim", I guess because it is easy. Most know my nickname, but do not use it. In my personal life, my friends call me Jamie...hence "JamieBK"

[Shapley]

It's interesting to note the rise of Islamic names in the last decade. Type in a few of them and take a look.

[jamiebk]

Be aware that the scale parameters change a lot even through the graph keeps the same graphic dynamic. So...you really have to guage name use by the "times per million" and not the "oh, Gee" graphs...another example of "how to lie with statistics"

[BigJon]

Well, I didn't find my name in the list, nor my Ooctavius or Rasputin.

(Ookay, okay, I'm kidding. My brothers aren't really named Octavius and Rasputin.)

Interestingly, Octavia is in the list, even though Octavius isn't. Is there some genetic reason that eighth children tend to be female, or are people simply ignoring the meaning of the name?

It's only the top 1000 names in any given time period. Also everything prior to the current decade is by decade, the current decade is by year, so don't let that skew your perspective.

[BigJon]

Be aware that the scale parameters change a lot even through the graph keeps the same graphic dynamic. So...you really have to guage name use by the "times per million" and not the "oh, Gee" graphs...another example of "how to lie with statistics"

Don't you think that the authors accounted for that by showing the graphs growing as they are refined?