I can't post this on her actual birthday since it doesn't exist, but the U.S.'s previous President has another daughter that a lot of us don't know about. Her name is Ryan Laura Bush (her middle name is after her mother, which she frequently uses like many other female Ryans so people don't constantly assume that she's a he). What's really unique is the day she was born: February 30, 1984. February 30 is also a special day for George W. Bush for this reason.
As for what Ryan Bush is up to, she's planning on running to be the first member of Congress from the Millennial generation (1982-sometime in the early-mid 20-aughts) in 2012.
If you haven't realized, this whole post is made-up (hence the February 30 birthday, based on Dubya's blunder in that video). I made it up as a joke to this thread on Nameberry when one of the members gave out "Natal Flower Names" based on the birthday of the person in question (if the link doesn't take you to the right post on the page, it's the third from the bottom; the first post on the next page is the OP of that thread's response to my joke). If it were real, that might explain the rise in female Ryans born during Bush 43's administration.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Seasons and phases of name popularity
In describing the rising and falling popularity of names, I've used the terms for the seasons to describe the four phases of a name's popularity fluctuation. (If you've spent any amount of time on my blog you know that Strauss and Howe do the same with the "seasons" of history, although their works are off-topic in this blog post.)
Spring - The name is increasing in popularity, and often falls into what is called on Nameberry the "hipster" phase when it is often well-liked by name enthusiasts and other similarly-minded people. These names may still seem a bit "out-there" for the general population.
Summer - The name is in its period of peak popularity and loses the "hipster" feel when it becomes most mainstream. In cases of really popular names, those not often around babies or young children may not realize the name's hotness but those that are do (this is what has inspired many of the titles in Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz's Beyond... series; in the late 1980s they published Beyond Jennifer and Jason, a decade later added "Madison and Montana" to the title, and now they have Beyond Ava and Aiden).
Autumn - The name is decreasing in popularity. Although these names are usually perfectly respectable to the general population, typically they are no longer considered "fashionable" and may sound dated. Names popular in the eras in which the current parents and grandparents were born that no longer are often in this season.
Winter - The name is steadily low in popularity. Names which were mainstream two seasons ago may sound old-fashioned to may people, but going for one of these names may actually put your child's name ahead of the curve if it "survives" the winter and doesn't become stuck in fashion limbo (think Bertha and Gertrude). Often names that don't fall as low are more likely to come back (for example Emma after being very popular circa 1880 never fell out of the top 500 and came back to near the top of the list in the 2000s, whereas the previous examples are all long out of the top 1,000).
A way you can determine when a particular name is or was in each season is to use a feature that graphs the name over time by the percentage of births (some good ones are The Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager and Behind the Name's top popularity lists/graphs). Naturally, these discussions discuss the names using U.S. stats; internationally they may be different.
For example, if you were to show the aforementioned Emma, it's previous summer was in the 1880s-1890s, it had a long autumn lasting until the early 1960s, wintered for a little over 20 years until the mid-1980s when it started rising again into spring, and reached its current summer in the early 2000s.
For a boy's example, let's use one of my current favorites: Oliver. This one up until its winter followed a similar trajectory to Emma (although Oliver's peak was nowhere as high) with its height in the latter part of the 19th Century and then declining until the early 1960s. Oliver wintered longer though, not showing a major rising until the second half of the 1990s and still in its spring phase.
For a name on a different part of the cycle, I'll use an example of what Satran & Rosenkrantz call a "mom name": Amy. When the stats began in 1880, it was either late summer or early autumn being on its way down until the late 1920s or so, was at its low for about 20 years or so after, then had a 20-year or so spring, then its late 60s to mid-80s heyday, and then started to decline. In recent years the decline is leveling off a little bit; it's too soon to tell whether the name is now still in the autumn decline or now in winter again (the 2010 stats when they come out may help give a clue).
Spring - The name is increasing in popularity, and often falls into what is called on Nameberry the "hipster" phase when it is often well-liked by name enthusiasts and other similarly-minded people. These names may still seem a bit "out-there" for the general population.
Summer - The name is in its period of peak popularity and loses the "hipster" feel when it becomes most mainstream. In cases of really popular names, those not often around babies or young children may not realize the name's hotness but those that are do (this is what has inspired many of the titles in Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz's Beyond... series; in the late 1980s they published Beyond Jennifer and Jason, a decade later added "Madison and Montana" to the title, and now they have Beyond Ava and Aiden).
Autumn - The name is decreasing in popularity. Although these names are usually perfectly respectable to the general population, typically they are no longer considered "fashionable" and may sound dated. Names popular in the eras in which the current parents and grandparents were born that no longer are often in this season.
Winter - The name is steadily low in popularity. Names which were mainstream two seasons ago may sound old-fashioned to may people, but going for one of these names may actually put your child's name ahead of the curve if it "survives" the winter and doesn't become stuck in fashion limbo (think Bertha and Gertrude). Often names that don't fall as low are more likely to come back (for example Emma after being very popular circa 1880 never fell out of the top 500 and came back to near the top of the list in the 2000s, whereas the previous examples are all long out of the top 1,000).
A way you can determine when a particular name is or was in each season is to use a feature that graphs the name over time by the percentage of births (some good ones are The Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager and Behind the Name's top popularity lists/graphs). Naturally, these discussions discuss the names using U.S. stats; internationally they may be different.
For example, if you were to show the aforementioned Emma, it's previous summer was in the 1880s-1890s, it had a long autumn lasting until the early 1960s, wintered for a little over 20 years until the mid-1980s when it started rising again into spring, and reached its current summer in the early 2000s.
For a boy's example, let's use one of my current favorites: Oliver. This one up until its winter followed a similar trajectory to Emma (although Oliver's peak was nowhere as high) with its height in the latter part of the 19th Century and then declining until the early 1960s. Oliver wintered longer though, not showing a major rising until the second half of the 1990s and still in its spring phase.
For a name on a different part of the cycle, I'll use an example of what Satran & Rosenkrantz call a "mom name": Amy. When the stats began in 1880, it was either late summer or early autumn being on its way down until the late 1920s or so, was at its low for about 20 years or so after, then had a 20-year or so spring, then its late 60s to mid-80s heyday, and then started to decline. In recent years the decline is leveling off a little bit; it's too soon to tell whether the name is now still in the autumn decline or now in winter again (the 2010 stats when they come out may help give a clue).
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
A hypothesis on why the U.S. did not go metric
In spite of an attempt to convert the United States to the metric system of measurements in the 1970s and 1980s, the nation is one of the few in the world that still have not adopted metric into everyday use. Many of the other English-speaking countries did a conversion around the same time or a few years earlier (e.g. Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, etc.) and in most cases have been more successful. Some say that the U.S. culture is stubborn to change, but I have another possible reason: the generational constellation in place at the time of the conversion attempt.
As Strauss and Howe have observed, the generations in the U.S. run a few years ahead of most of the other countries mentioned (except for maybe Canada), and the American attempt at conversion was a few years behind. What significance does that have? In the U.S., if you find someone who is strongly anti-metric there's a good chance they're a Boomer. For some reason Idealist/Prophet generations (of which the Boomers are one) appear to me to be the most resistant for learning new ways. You may think it is simply a function of age, but when the initial push to convert the U.S. to metric in the mid-1970s was made most of the legislators and others in power were members of the G.I. and Silent generations. By that time there were many Boomers well into young adulthood, who probably contributed to the stalling of the metric conversion effort.
In the other countries I mentioned, the push to metric was made a few years earlier. That along with most of them being a little behind the Americans on their generations meant that a change-resistant (in this arena; they are certainly change-inducing culturally though) Prophet generation had not yet exerted as a major force which enabled metric conversion to progress further.
So when can we expect a realistic chance at the U.S. going metric? A good guess is once the Boomers lose their majority in government control and we have less change-resistant Xers, Millennials, and Homelanders to help push us in the metric direction.
Here is the Wikipedia article on metrication (and the source for the metrication facts mentioned).
As Strauss and Howe have observed, the generations in the U.S. run a few years ahead of most of the other countries mentioned (except for maybe Canada), and the American attempt at conversion was a few years behind. What significance does that have? In the U.S., if you find someone who is strongly anti-metric there's a good chance they're a Boomer. For some reason Idealist/Prophet generations (of which the Boomers are one) appear to me to be the most resistant for learning new ways. You may think it is simply a function of age, but when the initial push to convert the U.S. to metric in the mid-1970s was made most of the legislators and others in power were members of the G.I. and Silent generations. By that time there were many Boomers well into young adulthood, who probably contributed to the stalling of the metric conversion effort.
In the other countries I mentioned, the push to metric was made a few years earlier. That along with most of them being a little behind the Americans on their generations meant that a change-resistant (in this arena; they are certainly change-inducing culturally though) Prophet generation had not yet exerted as a major force which enabled metric conversion to progress further.
So when can we expect a realistic chance at the U.S. going metric? A good guess is once the Boomers lose their majority in government control and we have less change-resistant Xers, Millennials, and Homelanders to help push us in the metric direction.
Here is the Wikipedia article on metrication (and the source for the metrication facts mentioned).
Friday, December 17, 2010
Is Rory the new Adrian?
What do the names Adrian and Rory have in common? Both are boy's names that for a period of time had a feminine pop-culture influence (for Adrian it was Rocky, for Rory it was Gilmore Girls) but remained predominately masculine according to the statistics.
For some people of the generation that grew up when the Rocky movies were popular that made Adrian sound a bit feminine for a boy, but now that those doing the naming are mostly those that grew up after those movies came out Adrian is now comfortably masculine according to the SSA stats (and ranked higher last year for boys than it ever has before). Even during the Rocky years, the boys still had the majority with the name Adrian (for the most part even so when figuring in the sound-alike feminine form Adrienne).
A generation later another name that sounds feminine from a pop-culture influence to some but is still more common for boys is Rory. The TV show Gilmore Girls had a female character with the (nick)name Rory, and thus made the name more visible for a girl (although there were female Rorys previously such as Rory Kennedy and Pamela Redmond Satran's daughter). Although the aforementioned show made Rory crack into the top 1,000 for girls, it still ranks lower than it does for boys; now that Gilmore Girls is off the air it looks like barring another influential female Rory the name will come out ahead for boys in the long term.
For some people of the generation that grew up when the Rocky movies were popular that made Adrian sound a bit feminine for a boy, but now that those doing the naming are mostly those that grew up after those movies came out Adrian is now comfortably masculine according to the SSA stats (and ranked higher last year for boys than it ever has before). Even during the Rocky years, the boys still had the majority with the name Adrian (for the most part even so when figuring in the sound-alike feminine form Adrienne).
A generation later another name that sounds feminine from a pop-culture influence to some but is still more common for boys is Rory. The TV show Gilmore Girls had a female character with the (nick)name Rory, and thus made the name more visible for a girl (although there were female Rorys previously such as Rory Kennedy and Pamela Redmond Satran's daughter). Although the aforementioned show made Rory crack into the top 1,000 for girls, it still ranks lower than it does for boys; now that Gilmore Girls is off the air it looks like barring another influential female Rory the name will come out ahead for boys in the long term.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
About teenage "name nerds" and generations
Recently Nameberry had a blog post on teenagers (past and present) and their opinions on names. If you look around on many name forums you will see that quite a few of the frequent posters are teenagers (especially teenage girls; guys of any age like me are usually in the minority by a large margin). The teenagers' opinions also provide a clue at what kinds of names might be popular 10-20 years or so from now when they are having kids of their own.
These teenage name enthusiasts also provide a clue at generational changes with name styles. Since they are younger than most of the actual parents or expecting parents their seeking names, at certain times their style may clash some with the older members. Right now not as much, since today's teenagers are later Millennials with most of the twenty-somethings being earlier Millennials (expecting parents mostly being divided between Millennials and Gen-Xers). When I was a teenager myself (about a decade or so ago) it was different on the forums of the time; the division was between early Millennial teenagers and (mostly) Xers of child-bearing age. However, that also clued those who are "name nerds" at the upcoming trends. It may get interesting again in a few years when the oldest Homelanders (Strauss and Howe's tentative name for the new Adaptive/Artist generation) start joining the forums and giving their opinions.
If you look at some of the old articles on S&H's http://www.lifecourse.com site from the late 90s/early 00s, you will see how they try to separate the reality in teenage culture (the early Millennials) from what those a bit older (the late Xers) often protrayed it. Right now that "clash" is not as big since it is between waves of the same generation rather than those on different sides of a generational boundary. A decade or so from now it will once again be between those a few years apart but in different generations (Homelander teenagers vs. later Millennial twenty-somethings). As I said in the above paragraph, a similar pattern appears in the teenager vs. young adult name discussions.
These teenage name enthusiasts also provide a clue at generational changes with name styles. Since they are younger than most of the actual parents or expecting parents their seeking names, at certain times their style may clash some with the older members. Right now not as much, since today's teenagers are later Millennials with most of the twenty-somethings being earlier Millennials (expecting parents mostly being divided between Millennials and Gen-Xers). When I was a teenager myself (about a decade or so ago) it was different on the forums of the time; the division was between early Millennial teenagers and (mostly) Xers of child-bearing age. However, that also clued those who are "name nerds" at the upcoming trends. It may get interesting again in a few years when the oldest Homelanders (Strauss and Howe's tentative name for the new Adaptive/Artist generation) start joining the forums and giving their opinions.
If you look at some of the old articles on S&H's http://www.lifecourse.com site from the late 90s/early 00s, you will see how they try to separate the reality in teenage culture (the early Millennials) from what those a bit older (the late Xers) often protrayed it. Right now that "clash" is not as big since it is between waves of the same generation rather than those on different sides of a generational boundary. A decade or so from now it will once again be between those a few years apart but in different generations (Homelander teenagers vs. later Millennial twenty-somethings). As I said in the above paragraph, a similar pattern appears in the teenager vs. young adult name discussions.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
"Boy Named Sue" and disruption study: Flaws I found
I'm back again critiquing another name-related study I suspect may be biased and/or flawed. The study at this link supposedly finds that boys with "feminine" names are more likely to be disruptive or perform worse academically once they hit a certain grade. Here's some issues I found with how it was done:
1. The study was limited to one school district (the district wasn't specified). Why weren't multiple school districts across the country with varying racial and socioeconomic compositions studied?
2. Only students in grades 3, 4, 5, and 6 were studied. What would the results at higher grades be (such as once these kids reach high school)?
3. The grade organization between levels of schools varies between school districts. What would the results be for a district where middle school or junior high starts with grade 7? What about a school district in which elementary school goes through grade 8?
1. The study was limited to one school district (the district wasn't specified). Why weren't multiple school districts across the country with varying racial and socioeconomic compositions studied?
2. Only students in grades 3, 4, 5, and 6 were studied. What would the results at higher grades be (such as once these kids reach high school)?
3. The grade organization between levels of schools varies between school districts. What would the results be for a district where middle school or junior high starts with grade 7? What about a school district in which elementary school goes through grade 8?
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Boy playing for a field hockey team?
At the link below is a story about a boy who is playing on a field hockey team whose other members are all girls. Some people claim that it makes the team unfair, while others (like me) think that if girls can play on boy's teams, that boys should be allowed to play on girl's teams. Read my comment on the page shown below (#1,929) to learn about how (in general) I think there's a generation gap going on between Boomers and Millennials over the former's double standards and the latter's quest for true equality:
http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/blog/prep_rally/post/Male-star-leads-field-hockey-team-Is-he-an-unfa?urn=highschool-285871&cp=78
http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/blog/prep_rally/post/Male-star-leads-field-hockey-team-Is-he-an-unfa?urn=highschool-285871&cp=78
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