Comments on: The Name Voyager by Martin Wattenberg

The Name Voyager by Martin Wattenberg

e.e. coli — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 06:58:06 -0800

Names in Time [babyfilter]
Martin Wattenberg has crafted an elegant interactive visualization of this baby-name data (discussed mefiwise here ). Martin's work discussed here before: 1 2 3

By: jacquilynne

jacquilynne — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:22:47 -0800

Interesting and pretty. Take a look at K and see how it exploded in the last decade or two.

By: contessa

contessa — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:23:32 -0800

That is hella cool. Thanks for the link!

By: HuronBob

HuronBob — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:26:40 -0800

Crashes Safari every time (os 10.2.8) when I start to type, java doesn't load with firefox... not mac friendly or just me?

By: fungible

fungible — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:31:03 -0800

Very nice. I'm surprised Max and Zack are ranked so low - it seems like everybody names their boys that.

By: DieHipsterDie

DieHipsterDie — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:31:22 -0800

I referee mostly U13 soccer matches and it's apparently a Federal law that every girls team must contain at least two Ashleys, Emilys and Laurens.

By: ITheCosmos

ITheCosmos — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:36:02 -0800

That's a very fun tool. Also, I was appalled to note that my name is now in the top 100, while it was about 700th when I was born, and has always been an odd/memorable name. For some reason, the thought of eventually running into a lot of people 20 years younger than me who have my name sort of gives me the creeps.

By: eileen

eileen — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:38:05 -0800

Wow, this is amazing. It's exactly what my husband and I needed when we were looking for baby names, but we couldn't have even articulated the need. Every time we would think of a name, we'd look at the data for every year on the social security database, trying to get a feel for what the trend was, whether it was becoming more or less popular. I am just so excited by how good information design brings data to life.

By: WolfDaddy

WolfDaddy — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:38:26 -0800

Fascinating. My own name peaked in popularity in the 80s, and is now on a slow slide into obscurity.

By: gwint

gwint — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:42:04 -0800

Beautiful. HuronBob: works on Safari for me.

By: bluesky43

bluesky43 — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:51:37 -0800

names as art - great post!

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 07:59:10 -0800

Holy Crap! My name has practically gone extinct!

By: mmahaffie

mmahaffie — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:06:23 -0800

Holy Crap! My name has practically gone extinct! Well, we considered naming our daughter Sourwookie, but my mother-in-law objected.

By: Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:07:23 -0800

Heh. Krystle and Fallon are just mid 80s spikes, but Alexis kept going.

By: grrarrgh00

grrarrgh00 — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:13:41 -0800

I love the fact that Xander and Willow show up on the list in the '90s, thereby confirming the existence of Buffy fans as hardcore as me. ("Buffy" herself shows up briefly in the '70s, then disappears.)

By: coelecanth

coelecanth — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:13:58 -0800

Beautiful idea. Really impressive.

By: ursus_comiter

ursus_comiter — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:18:43 -0800

Fascinating. My own name peaked in popularity in the 80s, and is now on a slow slide into obscurity. My given name peaked in 1900 (or earlier) and has been on the slide ever since. Seems to be off the radar now. Elmer is more popular these days!

By: Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:19:34 -0800

This is really addictive. Who was "Stoney" that caused a tiny blip in the early 60s?

By: ursus_comiter

ursus_comiter — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:29:46 -0800

Ulises!? WTF?

By: ursus_comiter

ursus_comiter — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:32:01 -0800

And Lars was mildly popular throughout the 60s and 70s and then went away again.

By: chandy72

chandy72 — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:35:53 -0800

Just as I suspected, Ella and Jackson have made some astounding leaps -- Jackson form 656 in the 1970s to 52 in 2003 and Ella from 662 in the 90s to 44 in '03 -- confirming the anecdotal trends of the aspiring yupsters in my local playgroupland. How did Ella get plugged back into the mainstream so suddenly?!

By: Harry

Harry — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:37:51 -0800

A definite Kirk spike in the 60s. Creepy! Typing in LAT brings up all the clichéd ghetto names. They seemed to have dissapeared after in the 90s. And there were no Mohammeds born before the 1980s?

By: sonofsamiam

sonofsamiam — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:38:19 -0800

Every time we would think of a name, we'd look at the data for every year on the social security database, trying to get a feel for what the trend was, whether it was becoming more or less popular. See, what we really need is a good hash function for identifying new humans with unique IDs, minimizing collisions within demographics likely to have to deal with each other. Now, I know what you're thinking: hash codes are too hard to remember! Well, we just use the hash as a generating string for a easily memorizable name, so "P123A32S4362JZ56" becomes "Princess Adolph Stradlater Jamiroquai Zwanzighausen".

By: Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:40:07 -0800

Britney, Brittney, Britany, Brittany, Brittani, Britannnie, Britni. Enough already. Sunshine hippie spike. hmm that would be a good name for a band

By: Songdog

Songdog — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 08:58:49 -0800

The visualization is great. An interesting addition would be some way to aggregate the various spellings of a name to see how these have evolved over time.

By: deborah

deborah — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:04:21 -0800

Deborah peaked in the 1950s, almost no usage in 2003. Not exactly a bad thing. Crashed Firefox 1.0, fine with IE 6.0

By: me3dia

me3dia — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:05:18 -0800

Our friends gave birth to the first Hazle in about 75 years, it seems.

By: mikojava

mikojava — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:11:48 -0800

For the poster who was wondering about Ulises, it's spanish form of Ulysses or Odysseus. Hektor is also popular, and quite an excellent name. Since these are demographic trends from Social Security databases, they should be reflective of trends of immigration and increases in the population of various linguistic and cultural influences.

By: sklero

sklero — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:17:19 -0800

I've always wondered about that huge spike in the popularity of Jason in the 1970's. Anybody know what that's about?

By: arabelladragon

arabelladragon — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:25:19 -0800

ITheCosmos - my fiancee has a name which exploded in popularity for little boys who are now about 7 and under. It always cracks me up in stores when an irate mother yells his name and he immediately looks guilty. Plus, we figure 20 years from now if he has to send out resumes, he'll look young but with a ton of experience and that might work in his advantage.

By: Lazlo Hollyfeld

Lazlo Hollyfeld — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:42:30 -0800

I love the explosions in names that start with uncommon letters: Q, X, Y, and Z .

By: Lazlo Hollyfeld

Lazlo Hollyfeld — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:52:31 -0800

Also, type in "LAT" for the crazy 70s and 80s spike in names like Latoya, Latonya, Latosha, Latasha, Latisha and Latrice. And notice that they have *all* dropped off the top 1000. Ooh... weird. I also just noticed "Nevaeh" which is currently number 150. Can't figure it out? It's "heaven" backwards...

By: selfmedicating

selfmedicating — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:54:58 -0800

Heh. Krystle and Fallon are just mid 80s spikes, but Alexis kept going. I'm an Alexis, born 1969, when it was #395. Nobody thought it was a girl's name, and my social life took a minor hit in elementary school when a lunch lady revealed that there was a famous Russian wrestler named Alexis. The 80's were rough. I heard, "Oh, like on Dynasty?" a lot. In the 90's, it was "Oh, like the car?" The people who named their kids after the bitchy joan collins dynasty character in the 80s had poorly behaved toddlers. For a while there I couldn't venture into Target without hearing my name screamed in the aisles.

By: chickygrrl

chickygrrl — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:00:28 -0800

Wow. Look at the spikes for Elvis. Checking my name (Crystal), it peaked in the 70's and 80's at #36 and #21 but yet I never met another one in school until my last year of high school.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:01:35 -0800

This is perfect, as baby names weigh heavily on my mind these days. We want something slightly retro, nice, and not too popular, and this visualization gives us all that. While I was searching the Am... names, I shouldn't be surprised but I still am when I noticed since 2001 there has been a spike in babies named "America"

By: Lazlo Hollyfeld

Lazlo Hollyfeld — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:08:48 -0800

Well, lets see... "Meta" rang in the century at #371, and dropped from there. So: Retro - Check. It peaked in 1900. Not too popular - Check. It's been out of the top 1000 since 1920. Nice - Well, check, of course. I think we have a winner.

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:16:19 -0800

Very impressive. Bravo. I too wish this had been available/known to me 1.5 years ago. Would have been much easier than digesting those damnable Social Security lists. Mathowie: those were nearly our same criteria. An "established" name, easy to spell and pronounce, but yet not overly popular. Having to go through life either as "John S." or "Mary 2" or whatever would be excruciating, and having your name mispronounced every day and having to constantly correct people would be no better. On preview: Lazlo's right. I think you have to go with "Meta" at least for a middle name. Come on matt, chance of a lifetime!

By: Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:27:19 -0800

This is perfect, as baby names weigh heavily on my mind these days. We want something slightly retro, nice, and not too popular, and this visualization gives us all that. Heh. Been there, done that.

By: lisa g

lisa g — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:43:39 -0800

This is really beautiful. How did Ella get plugged back into the mainstream so suddenly?! It's similar to Emma, which according to various sources is either #1 or #2 in the U.S. right now ... some people, in search of a "unique yet familiar" name, gravitate toward names that sound like names in the Top 10 but aren't quite as common. (I think Lydia is getting a similar boost from Olivia, as is Amelia from Emily.) I'm thinking about these things way too much; I'm due in about four weeks or (yikes!) sooner. We instituted a 50/50 Rule: the first name shouldn't be in the current top 50 (at least as of 2003, the latest year the SSA gives), but also should be something that could have been given to a baby 50 years ago. (So no Nevaeh -- or even Neveah, its common variant: "Haeven" backward!) I promise we won't use Meta, though.

By: saladin

saladin — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:47:30 -0800

Well, this settles it, I'm naming my first-born son 'Buster'.

By: Lazlo Hollyfeld

Lazlo Hollyfeld — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:10:38 -0800

Ok: Trinity - #57 in 2003 Christian spike or geek spike? Or both?

By: Asparagirl

Asparagirl — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:12:24 -0800

My father-in-law is to blame for the popularity of the name Madison for girls. It's #3 in the US right now, and #2 both last year and the year before that. I'd like to apologize to the country on his behalf, but I can't--his wife, my mother-in-law, seems to be set on it being her first granddaughter's name...

By: Numenorian

Numenorian — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:26:48 -0800

Also check out the popularity of Trinity lately....hmm wonder ife neo is also high? On preview: damny you lazlo

By: Numenorian

Numenorian — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:29:16 -0800

Upon more review/preview, I should actually review my post: if *not* ife and damn *not* damny Looks like I picked a bad day to quit sniffin' glue

By: ursus_comiter

ursus_comiter — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:37:01 -0800

So that's what caused the downfall of the Men of the West.

By: MonkeySaltedNuts

MonkeySaltedNuts — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 11:44:31 -0800

I wish he broke down the name data by states. There is some weird stuff going on there. I once did a small state-wise analysis and found for example that "Kevin" (an Irish name) is in the top 5 name in Puerto Rico, even though it doesn't make the top 5 in any US state. What is going on there?

By: graventy

graventy — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:23:17 -0800

Liberty also peaks like America.

By: tidecat

tidecat — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:51:31 -0800

This is perfect, as baby names weigh heavily on my mind these days. We want something slightly retro, nice, and not too popular, and this visualization gives us all that. Congrats, mathowie. A baby mefi on the way!

By: Lazlo Hollyfeld

Lazlo Hollyfeld — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 13:14:35 -0800

Oh, and why do all of the vowel names have the same mid-century sag?

By: exceptinsects

exceptinsects — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 13:42:47 -0800

This is the best thing I've seen all day. Just when I thought I'd exhausted all the time-wasting possibilities on SSA.gov.

By: Creosote

Creosote — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 14:22:20 -0800

Then there's Jennifer, #1 in the 1970s and still holding on, whose entire popularity arose, I believe, from the character in Eric Segal's Love Story. (So how come "Oliver" didn't get a Love Story bounce?)

By: COBRA!

COBRA! — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 14:31:32 -0800

I was gratified to see that the 60s-70s Jen/Amy/Sarah explosion was wider-spread than just my undergrad campus.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 15:10:15 -0800

Names such as Barbara, Betty, Linda, Nancy, Lisa, and Patricia -- did they just snowball by chance, or can you think of famous early examples (real or fictional) that probably helped them along? And how come it took until the 1970s for Adolph to fall off the chart?

By: straight

straight — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:15:25 -0800

Names that take huge nosedives: Adolf/Adolph, Monica, Mona, Dick, any others?

By: BrandonAbell

BrandonAbell — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:34:57 -0800

Waldo has seen better days.

By: rafter

rafter — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 17:04:33 -0800

Check out "Oswald" -- it took a huge dive in the beginning of the century, but suddenly was reborn in the 90s as the immensely popular "Oswaldo." Oswaldo, heh.

By: Oriole Adams

Oriole Adams — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 21:52:14 -0800

Just curious, Harry...what is a "ghetto name"? Meanwhile, take a glance at growingfamily.com and try to guess where these (actual) baby names will eventually place on the graph: Raedynn Breck JaAires Kashis Koda Daxon Matissen (a cre8tive twist on Madison, apparently) Mazzy Jane Tris'Stan Xzavier

By: groar

groar — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 22:31:27 -0800

Heh, type 'Eth' to see a huge spike in one name and the dwindling into oblivion of another. Names are so faddish.

By: deafmute

deafmute — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 22:50:03 -0800

This is FANTASTIC. I would love to see conjecture about why certain names seem to rise and fall through the decades. Some interesting things: the death of the name "Al" in the 70s, the sudden spike in children named "London", "Paris", and "Hunter" in the 80s and 90s, the spike in the name Muhammad starting in the 80s, the spike in "Sunshine" during the 70s, the death of "Betty" at the same time, and the spike in the myriad of spellings for names that end in "Lee" in the 90s. It looks like people are acquiring a taste for somewhat unique names, which, ironically, won't be unique for long (check out Elias and Seth). This is endlessly fascinating. Also, check out the undulations of the name "Mercedes" and the rise of the name "Lexus".

By: groar

groar — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:10:41 -0800

I just spent way too much time typing in random letter combinations. Now I'm trying to understand how it was *ever* cool to name your kid one of these: primitivo furman clotilde cloyd napoleon

By: pracowity

pracowity — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:45:55 -0800

There was a crash in Bu- and Be- names. How come no one names their kid Buck or Bud or Buford or Burl or Burton or Buster anymore? No Burnices or Bulahs? Have all the Bers hit the Bermuda Triangle?

By: melixxa600

melixxa600 — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 08:52:59 -0800

Heh, type 'Eth' to see a huge spike in one name and the dwindling into oblivion of another. Names are so faddish.

Wow, the Ethel-Ethan trough is beautiful.

We're about to name a boy. Certain names we liked (Elijah, Dominic) are shown by this chart to be much more popular than I ever would have expected. So yeah, maybe we should go for Buford or Burl instead. Or, you know, Urban.

By: trii

trii — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 10:03:19 -0800

Wow, did I ever need this a decade ago. Since I adopted my kids I didn't hang with the mommies-to-be crowd and didn't do much name comparing, just picked one I liked. Imagine my surprise when I enrolled her in pre-school and she was the 3rd Hannah in a class of 20 kids! I've been apologizing to her since - all the Hannahs in her seventh grade class go by their last names to avoid confusion. (Though I still like the name...)

By: mcstayinskool

mcstayinskool — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 12:02:23 -0800

I saw this site posted this morning on the always cool Lifehacker (well, in it's 2-week existence at least). Thought I had an FPP, but looks like I'm about a day late. I love creative visual displays of information like this. This and the State of the Union Parser are why I come to MeFi...

By: rafter

rafter — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 12:34:41 -0800

mcstayinschool, you may like the information-design tag on del.icio.us.

By: Oriole Adams

Oriole Adams — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 20:58:23 -0800

Bad. Naming your baby something that, despite the superlfluous apostrophe, looks like "Mackarel Nausea." Worse. Having a link in your baby album that leads to self-proclaimed Bootylicious photos of yourself.

By: Al_Truist

Al_Truist — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 04:07:30 -0800

WTF? "Raekwon" People need to get out and breathe more than one kind of air... [thankfully it peaked into existence in the 90s, then just as dramatically flatlined.]

By: Al_Truist

Al_Truist — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 04:08:53 -0800

oh, and... this is good.

By: litlnemo

litlnemo — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 04:26:22 -0800

('Buffy' herself shows up briefly in the '70s, then disappears.) From the character in the tv series Family Affair, no doubt. It never fails to amaze me how many parents get names from tv shows. (I have one myself, but the show was only on for one season and almost no one remembers it.)

By: mcstayinskool

mcstayinskool — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 09:29:55 -0800

rafter-- great link. thanks.

By: gregorg

gregorg — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 05:55:42 -0800

re canceled tv show names and that Kirk spike in the 60's: Kirk Cameron was named after the Star Trek, but wasn't born until 16 months after the show was canceled. Maybe it was piles of angry letters from parents saying, "Excuse me, I named my KID after that show," that brought it back.