I was born in 1937 and my name was rather low then. But it rose steadily through the 40s to a hight point around 1950, then stayed high till around 1990. Since then it has been in steady decline. Just like me. But that is an interesting site.
Got me right – 1958, just near the peak of “James”.
Someone told me just last week that the name had dropped drastically on popularity in the last 20 years or so. This was news to me, but the chart seems to confirm it.
My name, and its Biblical variant, is very specific as to what year we were born. The chart shows a ten year range, with the peak in the year after I was born, and there were four of us in my graduating class. I always play the “guess which year I was born” game when I meet someone with my name, and if you guess between 1957 and 1960, you are always right. Two famous women with that name were prominent in those years… since then I can only think of two others, one nearly my age and one about 20 years younger.
I never realized my parents were so far ahead of their time in picking names for me, my brother and sister. According to that site I should be in my mid-thirties and my older brother barely able to drink in many states.
Mrs. J. is fortunate to have a classic name at home in any generation.
My parents were ahead of the curve when they named me, I was born in 1975 and my name peaked in 1988. That surprises me because my name is an old name, think Old Testament old. They were closer with my sister, she was born in 1978 and her name peaked in 1982.
Apparently no one names their kid Megan anymore. That’s my youngest niece, she was born in 2011 and her name has been on a steep decline since the peak in 1990.
I put my mom’s very unusual first name in and found out it peaked in 1959, when my mom was 10. Even at the peak there were less than 40 girls given that name in the US.
Hmm. I guess because we lived in Manhattan, we were a generation ahead of the move to give Jewish kids “ethnic” names. Rivkah was almost nonexistent when I was born in 1967, but it was huge in 2010; the trend to give Jewish kids Israeli or biblical names without Anglicizing them went national I’d guess around 1990.
Rebecca, on the other hand, was in an upswing all during the 20th century. It experienced a small dip in the late 60s, but it was nonexistent in the first three decades, the had a steady climb beginning in the mid-40s, and peaked around 1960, dipped slightly, and peaked again, even higher, a little later, then declined (but still remained very much in use, as opposed to the total non-use in the 20s and 30s) as Rivkah began to rise in the 1990s.
I wonder if it had anything to do with the number of Jews who came to the US after WWII? I’m sure it was part of the trend away from near-names, like Irving for Yitzhak/Isaac, Sheldon for Shlomo/Solomon, Alvin for Avraham/Abraham, etc., as American Jews started using more biblical, but not terribly “marked” names, like Sarah and David (by that, I mean Jewish names that are fairly common among gentiles, as opposed to more obviously Jewish names, like Solomon or Hadassah, which gentiles never use). Baby Boomer and early Gen-X Jews have these names.
The popularity of my first name fell of a cliff shortly after I was named. It runs in my father’s family though, so I was likely to get it anyway. Heh, I was likely to get it even if I was a girl, as the female version of it runs in my mom’s family.
For some reason, both versions spiked around 1920, with the female version falling off faster than the male.
My name checks out. Adult, Male.
I was born early 80s. Since I’ve been an adult I’ve noticed my name first really started showing up in the late 70s. In school, there were usually at least a few of us with the same name. Fifteen years out of high school, I rarely see younger people with my name anymore.
Site says 29-48. I’m in the lower middle of that. Checks out.
My name is 20 years older than I am. I already knew that. The median birth year of my mum’s name is within four years of her actual birth. My father’s name has been exceedingly rare in the US but is taking off in popularity and his median birth year is 2002. My daughter falls close to the bottom end of the predicted range for her name, but my son is 19 years younger than the youngest age in the predicted range.
My name is just slightly old-fashioned for my age. It peaked two years before I was born.
My wife is a very different story. Her name was rare when she was born. It peaked almost 30 years AFTER she was born. It is now fairly popular.
I’m quite familiar with that SS database. As a fiction writer, I want my characters names to be appropriate for their ages, and that database has been a godsend. Say I’m writing a story set in 2015, and I have a character who is X years old. Put in their birth year, and I get a list of the most popular baby names for that year. Then I just have to pick one from the list that suits my character.
The sample size is small, but I’m amused that Yoko spiked as a girl’s name right after the Beatles broke up.
Neither mine nor my son’s are in the database.
Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit, that was impressive. I was named after my great-grandmother back in the old country (Germany), so I doubted it would get me right. But on the other hand, there were 3 other girls in my grade school class with the same first name (spelled differently, but pronounced the same), so that should have been my first clue.
According to that chart, I was born in the peak year for my name, which was clearly a baby boomer name. It got popular in 1948 and fizzled out to nada about 1965. Since it’s an ethnic name, I have to wonder if all those GIs heard the name in Europe during the war and brought it home.
Interesting as heck.