Where have all the Gertrudes gone?

Although baby names are in important chapter of my life, and I think worthy of posting at WoV, I'm still stinging from Mosca's rebuke for writing about unicycles there, so shall post this here.

There is a really good article about name trends at 538.com titled How to Tell Someone’s Age When All You Know Is Her Name. I think it is very clever how they combined baby name births by year with mortality tables, SSA being the source for both, to get a living age distribution for any given name.

When I was at SSA I was tempted to combine name and income data to see how a given first name was correlated to financial success, but never got around to it.

Quote: Wizard

Although baby names are in important chapter of my life, and I think worthy of posting at WoV, I'm still stinging from Mosca's rebuke for writing about unicycles there, so shall post this here.

Booted from your own site is not the worst I ever heard about unicycles, my brother knows a guy almost got arrested over riding one.

Quote:

There is a really good article about name trends at 538.com titled How to Tell Someone’s Age When All You Know Is Her Name. I think it is very clever how they combined baby name births by year with mortality tables, SSA being the source for both, to get a living age distribution for any given name.

What I find interesting here is how the trendiness is mostly on female names. It is as if women's names trend with fashion same as women's clohes, very fast. But men's names are more "classic" and while there is ebb and flow there are things that are always in style for guys.

As to the name and income thing, tread very careful here. There are already complaints that a resume with a "black name" gets fewer calls and it is worse for black female names than black male names. Defining what said names are falls under "I know it when I see it" IMHO.

When I was at SSA I was tempted to combine name and income data to see how a given first name was correlated to financial success, but never got around to it.

Over the years, I've always cautioned friends about giving their kids trendy names. You never hear names like "Herbert" or "Mildred" anymore, and I'm sure many of the trendy names today will become dated at some point.

OTOH, names associated with the Bible or with royalty will probably be around forever.

Quote: Beethoven

Over the years, I've always cautioned friends about giving their kids trendy names. You never hear names like "Herbert" or "Mildred" anymore, and I'm sure many of the trendy names today will become dated at some point.

I remember the 1980s when "Krystal" and "Alexis" were raising in popularity. Right now a trend for males seems to be to give a first and middle name that can be used as initials. If you want to give a trendy name, adopt a puppy.

You mean my idea of calling my daughter Shaniqua and my son D'Brickashaw might impinge on their job prospects?

Luckily for them, they are as yet unconceived. Odd, that.

Quote: AZDuffman

I remember the 1980s when "Krystal" and "Alexis" were raising in popularity.

Ah, I remember that silly trend too. (I wonder how much Dynasty was responsible for the popularity of "Alexis"?) I cringed when my cousin named her daughter "Alexis".

To me, it's kind of irresponsible for parents to give a kid a trendy name. When they grow up, how in the world are they supposed to be taken seriously with a name like "Jett" or "Kylie"??

I agree. There is certainly a bias, many surveys have found, in employers stereotyping resumes. A name goes a long way.

Quote: boymimbo

A name goes a long way.

One thing I always found consistent was women who used hyphenated last names. In banking I had an unofficial motto of "show me a woman with a hyphenated last name and I will show you someone who is very difficult to deal with." I was rarely incorrect on this and some other guys actually agreed with me after I told them about it. I think it has to do with refusing to compromise.

Agreed.

My daughter should have had a hyphenated name, but we made a pre-married agreement that if it was a girl, the daughter would take on my ex-wife's last name and if a boy, it would be my last name, so my daughter has my ex-wife's last name, and I'm okay with that.

Of course, name changes are common nowadays, so if my daughter didn't like her name, she could change it.

My daughter's name is trendy now. Back in '97 when she was born it was #25 on the list, up over 380% from 10 years later. It's been in the top 10 for the last 10 years now.

Trendy girls' baby names in the 90s that died:

Jessica (dead)
Ashely (dying)
Amanda (dead)
Jennfier (peaked in the 70s)
Sarah (dying)
Stephanie (dead)
Hannah (dying)
Taylor (dying).

Emily is still very strong, as is Samantha.

I find the reasoning behind naming babies very interesting and I know that the Wizard has insight on this.

My grandkids names are Hollyn and Hudson. I
thought Hollyn was odd, but people really like
it.