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When Your Name Was Over Five Years, Twenty States Ago
And here you thought your kid’s rank on the Social Security Administration list was the best way to rank its avant garde factor. There’s another Web gadget doing statistical analysis of inane information to make it cool again.
Think Five Thirty Eight for the parent set, the Baby Name Mapper from the Baby Name Wizard (Disclaimer, I once interviewed the site’s creator for a dispatch on Babble about baby naming trends) will let you know when “your” name peaked in popularity and when.
Click for a more detailed “timeline report,” and you can see a state-by-state comparison of the density of “Jeanne,” “Jonathan” or “Jehosephat” (not surprisingly, the latter never made it into the top one hundred – perhaps we should suggest it for the Duggars?).
And since we brought up Five Thirty Eight, we should mention there is a bit of political intrigue to it all – the Baby Name Mapper will tell you if your chosen moniker is more “red state” or “blue,” lest you feel like you need to run interference with conservative Great Gramps.
Equally as useless (but fascinating) is the breakdown of how many poor folks or richie riches have picked Sally Mae or John John.
For what it’s worth: Jeanne reached the height of popularity in ’61 (oh, I hear Mad Men calling my name), popular with “neo-traditional” northeasterners . . . and Democrats.
Check out your name (or your baby name) and let us know, does it match up with your family?
Image: Baby Name Mapper
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