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Name Age Calculator

rhiever.github.io

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Re: Name Age Calculator

#71

Post by amyjess »

solarmist wrote: post #66
solarmist wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I'd say your parents were spot on with both your first and middle name, because middle names are usually picked in honor of someone in their or their parent's generation (usually a relative). The other thing is for the "classiest" names (ie most fashionable) you want to be at the head of the trend not at the height of popularity as it's become "common" by then.

And, to me, having a modern middle name (Jessica) actually sounds out of place.

That's interesting.

Funny thing is, I went back and forth so much. I could've very easily ended up with a much less common middle name.

After choosing "Amy" over "Jessica" for my first name, it took me a while to settle on a middle name. For a while, I wanted it to alliterate and very nearly chose "Abigail" (which was uncommon when I was born but is very common now). Then, I decided I wanted something truly uncommon and nearly decided on "Sunset" (it isn't even in the name database here, so I guess it was more uncommon than I thought!). Ultimately, I began to regret not picking "Jessica" as my first name, so I made it my middle name.

No regrets, though. My new initials form a tri-ligature, so I'm really glad I went with it.

Re: Name Age Calculator

#72

Post by cafard »

cafard wrote: post #59
mwexler wrote: post #54

Jeremiah ( http://rhiever.github.io/name-age-calculator/index.html?Gend... ) has an interesting rise in the 70s, but then disappears in the 80s (like so many things) but comes on strong again by the 2000s. The double humps doesn't seem to appear all that often, even clicking on the other examples in these HN comments, some of which appear to show spikes but are still normalish humps, not bimodal.

Heaven help us, but that might have been the Three Dog Night song "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog."

Another explanation, slightly more flattering to the parents, occurs to me: the popularity may owe something to the movie "Jeremiah Johnson", which came out about then.

Re: Name Age Calculator

#73

Post by SloopJon »

dm2 wrote: post #34
kuzmin wrote: post #19

The increase of "Alexander" starting from the mid-80s looks really weird: http://rhiever.github.io/name-age-calculator/index.html?Gend... It's easy to see why names such as "Buzz" have the curves that they have (space race), but it's hard to trace any event that influenced more common names. For example, check "Jacob", "Justin". Does anybody have an idea as to why these curves have this shape?

"Amy" is another interesting one, what influenced that? http://rhiever.github.io/name-age-calculator/index.html?Gend... I just figured out that it shows a random one when you don't enter a query, that's cool. Other spikes: Linda, Jordan, Mason, Deborah, Beth, Paige, Laurie, Chloe, Megan, Stella, Stacey, Kim It seems like female names are much more likely to have sharp spikes in popularity verses male first names.

Amy and Sarah were two of the most popular girl's names when I was growing up.

My wife dug in her heels pretty early in the pregnancy for a name that I later learned was a character on a TV show. Judging by the site, she's not the only one. The peak is still under a hundred, so not as embarrassing as, say, characters from 90210.

Re: Name Age Calculator

#75

Post by rhiever »

scholia wrote: post #74

Much as I admire Randy Olson, there's been a much better version of this around for at least 10 years: Baby Name Voyager. http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager

Thank you for the kind words. :-) Although that app you linked is a bit different - it's showing when names were popular over time. This app goes one step further and calculates how many of those people are still alive and makes a best guess at how old someone is based solely on their first name.

I also made a version similar to the Baby Name Wizard that look solely at name popularity here: http://rhiever.github.io/baby-name-explorer/

And I suppose it's just a matter of aesthetics for which one you prefer in that case.

Cheers!

r

Re: Name Age Calculator

#76

Post by rhiever »

betaclass wrote: post #53

I wish they wouldn't have curved/smoothed the graphs. Since it's by year, there are discrete points and values. When you curve a line it has implications for the underlying data, which in this case are incorrect.

I originally didn't smooth the data, but it looked way too jagged and crappy for many of the names. Ultimately, I erred on the side of aesthetics and sacrificed the ability to look up exact numbers in the graph. Rest assured, though, if you want the exact numbers you can download the underlying data of every graph with one of the links under the graph.

Re: Name Age Calculator

#80

Post by Enindu »

maxerickson wrote: post #45
Enindu wrote: post #4

It says, "Sorry, Enindu is not in the boys names database".

The source omits names that have less than 5 occurrences from the published data: http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html (So perhaps you aren't in the US and your name wouldn't show up in the source data, or perhaps you are in the US and your name is uncommon)

Yup. I'm not from US. And also my name is uncommon too. Even in my country. You know what, I didn't see enyone who has my name so far. I think I have a pretty unique name..!
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