Names

Oct. 18th, 2018 09:41 pm
ghoti_mhic_uait: (Tiny planets sofa)
About 5 years ago, I wrote a programme to work out which names were given to most similar numbers of amab and afab babies, as a shorthand for ungendered names. Recentltrsy, I was inspired to dust it off and put the most recent data through it, so I did both England & Wales and USA.

The first thing I noticed was that the numbers are a lot closer in England & Wales,but I think that’s an effect of all the US numbers being bigger. Apart from top name Avery, which is completely neutral in England & Wales (4 times as many afab as amab in USA), the proportions are similar with Bobbie & Rylee in E&W being similar proportions to Azariah & Oakley in
the USA, for example. The second I noticed was that where names appear in both lists, they are either in wildly different places (eg Frankie, one of the most neutral names in th e USA, has over twice as many amab as afab babies in England & Wales) or lean different ways (eg Morgan was given to roughly 5 times as many afab than amab babies in the USA, and roughly 3 times as many amab as afab in England & Wales).


Read more... )

Names

Oct. 14th, 2010 03:55 pm
ghoti_mhic_uait: (Sleep)
I get very annoyed when I read name lists of 'British baby names' that have been gathered by Americans from the Torygraph announcement columns. They tend to not reflect real life. So, I decided to compile my own lists, and I'm putting them here to remember where I left them.

Edit: the 2009 names data is available!

The latest stats for England & Wales are 2008, so I've used the 2008 data for both countries.

These are the boy names that feature in the top 100 of England and Wales, but not the top 1000 in the US, and their England & Wales ranking:
Alfie (6)
Archie (31)
Harvey (34)
Theo (58)
Freddie (60)
Finlay (61)
Louie (93)
Ewan (95)
Zak (100)

These are the girl names that feature in the top 100 of Englang and Wales, but not the top 1000 in the US, and their England & Wales ranking:

Millie (24)
Freya (27)
Poppy (29)
Imogen (33)
Isobel (58)
Maisy (63)
Rosie (66)
Niamh (70)
Harriet (81)
Hollie (87)
Tilly (93)
Florence (94)
Maryam (99)
Esme (100)

and now the names that made the top 100 in England & Wales but not in the US )

So, what does that all mean?
I find it utterly astonishing that three of the top ten girls names in England and Wales (Ruby at number 2, Lily at number 8 and Evie at number 10) don't make the US top 100. I guess there isn't as much shared culture/overlap as I thought.

There are some names that make the top 100 for boys in England and Wales, but not the US, that make the girls list there (Morgan, Taylor, Bailey). There are some names that used to be more popular in th US, that are waning in popularity now (Harrison, Courtney). I am wondering where all the American Muslims are -even most popular spelling Mohamed was at #430.

Overall, though, the main thing that catches my eye is that there are a lot of diminutives on that list (Alfie, Archie, Theo, Millie, Rosie, Tilly). I've been very surprised since having Judith the number of people who are suprised that Judy is a diminutive of Judith, for example... I think English people compartmentalise more, maybe.

Anyway, I hope at least one of you found that interesting.

Profile

ghoti_mhic_uait: (Default)
ghoti_mhic_uait

November 2024

S M T W T F S
     12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 6th, 2025 03:22 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios