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Baby Name Predictor
- adrr 12y agoInteresting. Wonder if you could use this data to determine most probably age range of a person.
- wilson428 12y agoYou definitely could. It's a probability curve tempered by a mortality curve, basically.
- Dave_Rosenthal 12y agoSearch for a name in wolfram alpha and it give you the age PDF
- jere 12y agoI've wondered for a while if there is a market for baby naming as a service. If so, that would be a useful tool.
- facepalm 12y agoI think in China it is a business, picking a name is very complicated because of all the superstition there.
- uptown 12y agoCheck out http://nameberry.com/ http://nameberry.com/
- calgaryeng123 12y agoI just released www.BabyNameFaceoff.com . Built it for myself, wondered if anyone else was interested.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Killswitch 12y agoI find my name peaked the year I was born and has declined every year since very interesting.
- simonsarris 12y agoWow, my dad would have loved to come across a tool like this. My father, in his infinite genius, devised a clever naming scheme for his children (three of us), with the following rules: 1. The middle name must be a fairly rare name, so that we might be the only one among friends/peers with the name, but not so unique or strange that we'd be ridiculed. I'm really grateful for this, and I consider the uniqueness (yet normalcy) of my name a huge gift. To this day I've only ever met one other Simon in person. (It's extremely rare in the US, but very popular in the UK I'm told). 2. The first name must be fairly common, everyday name, named after someone in the family, as a fallback for us. Then, we were all to be called by our middle names. If we grew up detesting that name[1], we could easily switch to our first name as our primary je m'apelle and nobody in our future would think twice about it. John Nicholas was picked for my brother's first and middle as Nicholas was a "good Greek name" that almost nobody in America used. That was 1987. If you look at Nicholas in this tool you'll see just what happened to that name! (in the 1980's it shot up to over 1% of names and remained that way until after 2000). My dad was kind of bummed, and probably would have picked a different name if he had a bit of accessible clairvoyance. (Remember, pre-internet it was hard to even know that you could find this information out at all. I suspect the data he found in the 1980's, if any, was already years out of date) I'm the only child that didn't follow the rubric because Anthony Simon Sarris makes for a slightly offensive monogram, so my parents switched the order (to Simon Anthony Sarris) and I'm the only child called by his first name. [1] My little brother hated his middle name Morgan for most of his life (a girl's name too, some teasing, etc) so most of his friends call him by his first name. After high-school he appreciates both names. Aside- I do think our kind are more predisposed to obsess over names than most: "There are only two hard problems in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things." -- Phil Karlton
- Theodores 12y agoI was almost a 'Simon', however my mum spared me that name. However, it really is a popular name in the UK and has been perennially so. There is the potential for school-ground teasing - 'Simon says...' and 'simple Simon...' are two potential problem areas. As for Nicholas, not sure about kids today in the UK but there were plenty of Nicholii when I was at school, again, it wasn't a 'fad' name. I do find the called-by-second name 'rule' to be tantamount to having a stage name. It is rare in the UK for people to have their 'given' name as their middle name, I have only ever know one British person to do that. Maybe I should get out more, however, that is including the vast hordes of school/university friends/coursemates/party-goers. Personally I am glad I wasn't named after someone who turned out to be somewhat less than wholesome. Whatever happened to those born in the 1930's and given the name 'Adolf'? I did check but 'Adolf' has been erased from Time's databanks.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- akavi 12y agoOne lovely benefit of being an ethnic minority living outside the "motherland" is that you get a large pool of names to choose from that satisfy both the "only one in their 2nd grade class" and "venerable and meaningful" criteria. The downside is you'll be spelling out your name at Starbucks for the rest of your life and probably grow very tired of saying "No, emphasis on the first syllable, not the last" twice a week. But there are tradeoffs to everything.
- tcheard 12y agoI never understood this. Starbucks (or other places like it) don't ask for ID to prove the name you give them is actually yours. So why, if it is such a pain using your real name, don't you come up with a name, that is easy for them, that you can use just for when you are at establishments like this? You are never going to be able to fix the problem on their end, so why don't you do something about it?
- akavi 12y agoThe procedure of always responding to "your name?" with "Arjun, A-R-J-U-N", then listening for anything that starts with an "ar" sound is just simpler than remembering to give a fake name and then remembering to listen for that fake name. For me, at least. Shrug, it's hardly the largest burden to bear.
- chocolatebunny 12y agoGo by RJ
- arjunnarayan 12y agoNo, that's my Starbucks secret, he can't have it!
- mccolin 12y agoMy name, though not difficult, was seemingly mispronounced or spelled at every lunch and coffee establishment I frequented a few years back. So I took to providing a less-common name beginning with different letters of the alphabet, in order (e.g., Arnie on Monday, Bernard on Tuesday, etc.). It was always fun when someone would be shouting a name from the counter that I'd forgotten was mine for the day.
- jscheel 12y agoMy 18-month-old daughter's name is Evelyn (though we often call her Evie for short). Her name comes from two totally different places. First, she is named after my grandmother who passed away shortly before she was born. I wonder if this is part of the reason the older names are popular again. Secondly, she is named after Evie from The Mummy, which is one my wife's favorite movies (the 1999 version). Also a reason certain names become popular. Her middle name, Grace, comes from the fact that it was only by the grace of God that we were able to have her. We were really blessed with me getting some amazing freelance work when we were trying to figure out how to finance our IVF. I'm guessing that's a pretty common reason for Grace though. Well, anyways, we've done our part to influence the standing of Evelyn in the names race.
- cschmidt 12y agoOur daughter is Evelyn/Evie as well. She's 7, and we were ahead of the upward swing. (I was a big Social Security baby name geek). Our pediatrician said, "what an unusual name, there isn't another in our practice." Now there will be many to follow. I guess names just sound like their time has come, and everyone things so at the same time.
- ovulator 12y agoI think there are two main factors to why we see the popularity of certain names surge. One is what society finds important in a name. Right now in America that is representing uniqueness in the individual, which is why parents get dismayed when they see that they named children like many others, it makes their choice feel much less unique, and by extension, their child. The second part is that is has to sound like a name, if we wanted truly unique names you could name your kid “Ubizalan” and probably nail uniquness, but fail pretty miserably in sounding like a name. This is why we get phenomenon like: Aiden, Brayden, Jayden, Caiden … all very popular names and because of their spelling are “unique” but sound very similar, and therefore like a “name”. I think it is this second phenomenon that results in peaks for certain names. My daughters name is Scarlett, named after one of the colors of the University where my wife and I met. But had it not “sounded” like a legitimate name we wouldn’t have picked it. We certainly didn’t consider the rise of the popularity of the actress Scarlett Johansen, but having subconsiously heard her name in the media, it could have cemented the name as a “legitimate name” and made us more likely to pick it than a name which has faded into more obscure use.
- chrisfarms 12y ago> Adolph last peaked in 1913 . It will next peak as a baby name in 2029. Well it's bound to come back someday I guess, 2029 is as good a time as any :)
- jballanc 12y agoRealistically, how frequently to you hear the infamous 20th century leader referred to as "Adolph Hitler" today, as opposed to just "Hitler" (or, "literally Hitler")? I think by 2029 the fact that his first name was "Adolph" will fall into the pile of "mostly obscure history facts".
- theseoafs 12y agoTotally disagree. I call Hitler "Hitler", but whenever I hear the name "Adolf" I think of Hitler as well. That name is done in America.
- nitrogen 12y agoThings can change in another generation. By 2029, American kids born after 9/11 will be having and naming kids of their own, so "Osama" might be the #1 name to avoid, with WW2 less significant in their perceptions.
- ccernaf 12y agoI'm surprised at Winston and Franklin - I'm pretty confident that the bump/spike was due to Churchill and Roosevelt. Barack unfortunately was not in the list, so we can't compare that. But compare that to Joseph (Stalin), also a common name, which didn't experience a dip. But then again, neither did Adolph. Is there a name that experienced a dip, and then became popular again, due to a significant person?
- deckiedan 12y agoI would guess that Joseph wouldn't dip due to the huge number of other famous Josephs. (St. Joseph being the most famous). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_%28name%29#People_known_as_Joseph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_%28name%29#People_known_... Compared to Winston (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_%28name%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_%28name%29) which is only common in British/American history.
- personZ 12y agoAn interesting and entertaining study. I question the rigour of the prediction claims (they give a single example, though note that they disclaim that it isn't to be taken too seriously), especially given that naming patterns are dramatically changing. The top girl name accounts for about 1% of the gender now, where early in the 1900s it would account for 6%+. You can thank social media for that, and the effect is accelerating. Our awareness of trends nation and worldwide is much more amplified than it was before, and the forces that virally spread something also contribute to suppressing it lest we all look like fools. Add that multiculturalism and the acceptance of the same has greatly aided the entropy of names. I find geographic distribution and name variations far more interesting (though again, this is changing via social media). e.g. http://names.yafla.com/#n=Isabelle,Isabel,Isabell,Isabella&s=ft http://names.yafla.com/#n=Isabelle,Isabel,Isabell,Isabella&s...
- gknoy 12y agoThat visualization of geographic name popularity is AWESOME. :)
- shanecleveland 12y agoI used the historical SSA data to build babynamely.com. pretty basic, but good at alternate spellings and trends. I'd love to add a unique/interesting metric or predictor. The data is all there! I update it each year. I have three kids. The most important criteria for us was to not be too trendy or pick a name that was astronomically popular at the time.
- gknoy 12y agoI find it odd that my mother in law's name is not on this list. I wonder where the tool draws its data: is it only data that is above a certain threshold of the population?
- alister 12y ago> parents jump on the bandwagon, only to peak and decline as everyone on the playground starts answering to the same name Is the USA more individualistic when choosing names than, say, China or Brazil? Brazilians regularly give their date of birth in mundane situations because first+last name is not nearly unique enough: http://brazilsense.com/index.php?title=Giving_birth_date http://brazilsense.com/index.php?title=Giving_birth_date It's a shame the chart is US names only. I'd like to see common names ranked by country, to see if it says something about a culture's desire for either homogeneity or individuality. It would be interesting to see changes in conformity over time as well. In the USA, Sophia and Noah peaked at 1% each -- which seems like parents slavishly follow fashion -- but John was actually 9% back in 1880! Maybe conformity was more important a hundred years ago, and the USA has actually become more individualistic.
- kijin 12y agoAnother possibility is that there is greater diversity in the US now than a hundred years ago, people are more aware of it, and are okay with it, so there's a much larger pool of names to choose from. A hundred years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a white, English-speaking family to give their children a name that sounded even remotely non-Anglo-Saxon. Nowadays, nobody looks at you funny if you're named Mila or Declan.
- adventured 12y agoSeems pretty likely. John (M) for example was perhaps at 9% circa 1870. That's pretty dramatic, and definitely speaks to the lower cultural diversity.
- MakeUsersWant 12y agoCommon names in Germany (in German): http://www.beliebte-vornamen.de/jahrgang http://www.beliebte-vornamen.de/jahrgang
- notduncansmith 12y agoNice to know that we picked what will be a fairly uncommon, but not unheard-of, name for some time. I named my son Emmet (inspired by the Sublime plugin, stuck with it because my fiancé liked it). His full name is Emmet Smith, and the only two burdens it looks like we stuck him with were 1) the name of a famous football player (he's apparently not bad, and won Dancing With The Stars, so we don't feel too guilty), and 2) easily misspelt. We didn't know about #1 until after he was born (probably should have Googled it first), and I didn't really consider #2 until just now. We were mostly concerned with the ability to make fun of the name (Emmet doesn't lend itself to any crude nicknames we could think of), that it sounded nice, and that it would be fairly unlikely to encounter another one in school. I met another Duncan once in high school; we had a short chat after class, and he went by his middle name (Robert) the rest of the year. If we have another child, we'll have to pick a name that synergizes well with Emmet (though hopefully that won't be for some time)!
- jpatokal 12y agoGeeky naming baby naming story time! My wife's Japanese, and I'm Finnish. To name our kids, I found databases of Finnish and Japanese names, cross-referenced them together (with fuzzy matching to account for spelling variance, so eg. l == r and Finnish j == Japanese y), and filtered out those that were opposite genders. In the end, there were precisely three male names left... and we used two! Crappy code on Github: https://github.com/jpatokal/baby_names https://github.com/jpatokal/baby_names I was originally going to make this a public website, but encoding all the sound-vs-spelling rules is a pain and doing N-to-N fuzzy matching with raw SQL is too slow.
- tizzdogg 12y agoWhere did you get the databases of names? I'd like to do something similar but for different countries. Edit: Nevermind, I see it is in the README under data.
- lovemenot 12y agoUsed a similar method to this. For a boy, we opted for Kai , which I believe works for some Nordic countries' names (and Scotland) as well as in Japanese (umi).
- elwell 12y agoHere's a completely unrelated Chinese Restaurant Name Generator I made: http://www.christopherelwell.com/chinese-restuarant-name-generator/ http://www.christopherelwell.com/chinese-restuarant-name-gen...
- Chinese_girl 12y agoThe article is amazing.
- gammarator 12y agoImpressive: Time put the source code for the project on github: https://github.com/TimeMagazine/babynames https://github.com/TimeMagazine/babynames Not a fully replicable analysis, but still very cool to see.
- Centigonal 12y agoThe Github project doesn't appear to include the predictor code. I'm really interested in what they used to make the predictions? Any leads?
- clutterjoe 12y agoThe name "Dick" last leaked in 1938, it will make a comeback in 2031 when parents decide en masse to saddle their poor kids with lifelong ridicule.
- calgaryeng123 12y agoI actually just created a baby name tracking/recommendation app for myself, and released it for free to see anyone else was interested. You can find it at www.BabyNameFaceoff.com. The recommendation engine is David Celis' `recommendable`.