Adventures in Baby Name Charts
After reading Will’s post yesterday about baby names, I started poking around in the Social Security baby name database (which is an incredibly fun resource and might be all we get, since Republicans think we shouldn’t let Census do fun things any more).
I was chatting with a friend while I did this, and she mentioned that she knows someone named Luke who really wants to be in a group of some kind with people named for the other three Evangelists. Somehow, he’s never managed this, despite his belief that he has the least common name among the four.
A quick check revealed that Luke is actually not the least common of the four names for babies born recently (Mark is much less popular), so I decided to plot the popularity of all four over the last hundred years:
(Hopefully that’s readable. I truncated at the top 200 because otherwise this thing looks terrible.)
This is interesting for any number of reasons, but what really struck me is how loudly this chart is shouting “STAR WARS!” That was enough to make me want to share it, for sure, but I’d also love to hear if anyone has some idea about what’s going on with Mark. Does that have something to do with Star Wars too?
Last thing: if anyone wants to see any other charts, I’ll be happy to do more and share them here. This is fun!
So my name is Matthew, and my brother is Lucas (who is only known as Luke)…and it got me to wondering if Lucas would count. I would say no.
Now I would expect much of a bump from adding Lucas, but what about Marco (or other possible variants of Mark)? Do you think it would make a difference?Report
Actually, given that Lucas is the 29th most popular baby name for 2011 (and has been in the top 100 for a while), adding it would provide a much larger bump for Luke than would adding anything to Mark. For reference, the 2011 rank of names similar to Mark:
Marcus 145
Mark 159
Marco 280
Marcos 339
(There are more, but they’re all negligible.)Report
It’s just bizarre to think that in the 1960s “Luke” was such a rare name. What about Cool Hand Luke?
Something tells me the data in that chart must be defective. Or was “Luke” hovering just below 200 for a while?Report
Here’s the full series for 1960-1979:
1979 110
1978 139
1977 190
1976 222
1975 256
1974 265
1973 285
1972 320
1971 346
1970 351
1969 367
1968 397
1967 408
1966 398
1965 392
1964 374
1963 389
1962 391
1961 392
1960 384
I think Star Wars is rather clearly the cause of the spike, but your point about Cool Hand Luke is quite interesting.
Edited to add: Cool Hand Luke was released in 1967. You could certainly attribute the beginning of a trend to it, as that’s where the name’s popularity starts reversing course.Report
Argh, confounding factors: Luke Spencer, one of the most popular soap opera characters, was introduced in 1978. The zeitgeist was apparently on us in the late 70s.Report
Yeah, to me this chart shouts “General Hospital”, not “Star Wars”.Report
Not to generalize but I imagine that if there are differences in fecundity for fans of General Hospital versus fecundity for fans of Star Wars (where they don’t overlap, of course) that the differences would primarily skew one way and not the other.Report
Growing up, in the 60s, the only referent I had for Luke was Dick Crenna in The Real McCoys, which made it the equivalent of Jethro or Jedidiah, a biblical name that had fallen completely out of favor except among hillbillies.Report
This seems as good a place as any to announce that I will be attending Leaguefest under a pseudonym. I’m thinking “Erik” has a nice ring to it….Report
On behalf of the other attendees, I thank you in advance for helping clear up confusion rather than causing it.
Eric / Erik was a popular baby name in the early 70’s IIRC. Seems to me most school classes had two or more of them. Later, there got to be variants: Arik, Erick, Eriq.
I don’t recall the feminized version (Erica, and variants) being nearly as popular for girls in the same age group.Report
As the evening progresses, I plan to go from using my real name, to using my pseudonym, to using a combination of my real name and my pseudonym, to using a combination of my pseudonym and Burt’s pseudonym.Report
I’ve wondered if your pseudonym is a sign that you are a Dollhouse fan.Report
I was a Dollhouse mostly-fan. But it’s not the origin of my pseudonym.Report
This saddens me.Report
Has anyone read the Freakonomics study of baby name trends? Very interesting.
BTW, our yet-to-be-conceived child was going to be named Isabel. This was a name I’ve loved for years and has a special connection because the first child I cared for had it. Now it is super popular (my wife blames “Twilight”) and she is afraid to use it (though technically the real popular one is “Isabella” which we can’t use because it conflicts with our last name).Report
Ryan:
Can’t resist the cheap shot at Repubs can you? Ironic that that you accuse TVD of such borish behavior but do it yourself.Report
This is a weird comment.Report
I believe he is referring to your comment about Republicans not liking fun things in the Census.Report
I know what he’s referring to; I just think it’s weird to be so determined not to get a joke. He showed up on the original post to accuse me of a “spittle flecked rant”, though, and that was even weirder.Report
The obvious next step would be John, Paul, George, and Ringo. We should not be surprised at an enduring disparity between John and Ringo.Report
Or combinations thereof:
John Paul — Pope
John Ringo — MilSF writer
John George — Elector of Saxony
Paul George — Small ForwardReport
Ryan (and everyone else, I guess) – First of all, no worries on the picture thing. A lot of us aren’t doing it on a consistent basis. I’m going to be “cleaning” the site on a daily basis, starting yesterday. To that end:
** The best possible thing to do is put up the picture when it is posted.
** If you don’t know how but have a pic you really, really want to use, email that jpg to me and I will upload it for you.
** If you don’t upload your own picture and don’t send me one, then I’m going to put up a pic myself. I do not mind doing this, but you give up any rights (positive or negative!) to bitch about the picture selection.
Also, posts that feature videos get funky once they fall from the larger major slots to the older minor slots. Because the video preview acts as a great visual while the post is in the majors I don’t think we should change. But when they fall into the minors, I’ll be adding an appropriate picture so that it doesn’t look funky.Report
Also, this post was awesome.Report
All this talk of baby names is making me want to have a baby. Although, at this point, I wouldn’t know what to name the dang thing.Report
My wife and I recently had “the talk”. We spent half of our trip back from DC deciding on names. With that done, we figured we were halfway there. There is no way we are incorrect that regard, right?!?!Report
Among the odds and ends to consider in choosing a name, some to account for the innate meanness that the child will encounter at various age levels… How easy is it to pronounce first and last name together in that order? Same question, applied to most likely shortening of the first name (I go by “Mike”, but always answer the phone as “Michael Cain”, because the consecutive /k/ sounds can be easily misheard). Do the initials spell something that can be made fun of (my father was known as Doc throughout his time in the Navy because seabags all carried initials and his were DOC; worse things are possible)?Report
The weirdest part of this chart is the rise and fall of Mark. Does anyone have any theories?Report
From a friend on my Facebook post:
Karlsson’s Law: R(“Mark Hamill”, t) + R(“Luke Skywalker”, t) = CReport
Probably also true of “Anakin” and “Darth”.Report
Mark Twain resurgence?Report
Mark seemed to become very popular in the early 1940’s. What famous Marks were there then? Maybe Mark Clark? Was there a similar insurgence of boy babies named “Dwight” and “Douglas”?Report
Or “George”? Not many “Omar”s or “Chester”s.Report
Marky Mark?Report
Without the Funky Bunch, there is no Marky Mark.Report
At my previous job, we had a satellite office in Buenos Aries. Every woman who worked there was named Maria, and each one went by her middle name or a nickname, for the obvious reason. Yrah, no one is named Maria anymore — it’s too popular.Report
My son is named Max, but my wife and I were sorting through “Max” names to figure which one to choose (just plain Max? Maximillian, Maxim, Maximo?). In any case, type “Maximus” into the SSA site popularity search and it appears in 2000 (same year as Gladiator) at 850 and then stays above 500 (last year 212) ever since. A bit similar to Luke and the Star Wars example.
We settled on Maxwell.Report