I just have a general question about popularity charts and real life. For example if you love a name that’s number 412 how popular is this name in reality? [name_m]Will[/name_m] a name that’s in the 400s suddenly jump in popularity or would the child remain one of the only ones in their class? Similarly if your child’s name is in the top 100 how popular is that choice? Let’s say number 45 or 90 would the child be going to school and known as for example [name_f]Elizabeth[/name_f] X or [name_f]Lizzie[/name_f] Y? I’m just curious as to how popularity charts translate to real life.
At least for US popularity charts, you can search with parameters where it also shows percentages of births with that name or total number of babies born. I think that gives a better idea of popularity than just the ranking number. You also want to look at if a name is trending upward or downward because it might get rapidly more popular, although I’m sure there are names that hover around 400 for years and then suddenly shoot up! Also, I feel like with popularity it’s kind of exponential–there’s a bigger difference in how many kids have name #400 compared to #300 than there is between #100 and #200, for instance.
I think most kids with names in the top 100 will probably share a name with at least one kid in their school, grade, or class at some point. [name_f]My[/name_f] name was on the lower end of the top 50 the year of my birth, and I was the only one in my grade in elementary school but by high school there were two other girls with that name. The way things worked out, though, I was usually the only one in my classes so I didn’t usually have to be referred to by my last initial or anything. For me, it totally was not a big deal, but I do think a top 100 name means that the person will have to “share” their name at least sometimes if not regularly.
[name_m]Just[/name_m] taking a look at the table here from the social security Popular Baby Names for the state of [name_f]Georgia[/name_f] in 2019…
There were approximately 600 babies named [name_u]Liam[/name_u] #1, 600 babies named [name_m]William[/name_m] #2, and 600 babies named [name_f]Ava[/name_f] #1. So you would expect to encounter about the same number of [name_m]Williams[/name_m], Liams and Avas there. If you could find a stat for the number of babies born in [name_f]Georgia[/name_f] that year you could roughly estimate the chance of there being two of a certain name in a class maybe… but there would be some problems. Unless you live in a very diverse area I bet you are likely to be thinking similarly to the people you live near when you name your baby. So likely names are going to cluster.
Another thing to consider is that boy’s names and girl’s names have a different distribution so #50 on the boys and #50 on the girls (or whatever number you choose) will represent a different number of births.
Anyone have a good resource for the number of births per year by state?
@hellobanjo thank you for your response. So when saying that #50 for boys is a different distribution to #50 for girls what do you mean? Are you talking about the amount of girls vs boys being born in area? Or that parents are tend to have a more traditional outlook for boy names then parents for girls? Thank you sorry just trying to fully understand
Yes I think you’re right about the more traditional outlook for boy names. For example in [name_u]Texas[/name_u] in 2019 the table shows #37 for boys is [name_m]Luke[/name_m] (246 births), #37 for girls is [name_f]Lillian[/name_f] (167 births). So even though they are the same number [name_m]Luke[/name_m] is definitely a more common name than [name_f]Lillian[/name_f].
I’m really liking the names [name_f]Lilia[/name_f] & [name_f]Iris[/name_f] currently. [name_f]Iris[/name_f] in the U.K. is in the top 100 whereas [name_f]Lilia[/name_f] is number 412 obviously there’s a massive difference in popularity and I’m just trying to establish whether [name_f]Iris[/name_f] is a fad name or not you know.
This website has a neat feature near the bottom where you can type in names in the top 100 and see their popularity by region in [name_f]England[/name_f] and [name_m]Wales[/name_m].
