Saturday, June 16, 2012

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - How popular was your name?

Hey, genea-philes - it's Saturday Night again, time for some Genealogy Fun!!

Did anybody but me have SNGF last week?  I don't think so... being at a conference or seminar is no excuse!  Come on now and just do it.  Or it will go away... no pressure!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  Go to the Popular Baby Name page on the Find the Best website at http://popular-baby-names.findthebest.com/.


2)  Enter your given name into the search box, click the appropriate gender button, and click on the "All" Decade button.  Note the results for your given name.

3)  Tell us about how the popularity of your name has changed over the decades.  Were you named during the buildup, the height, or the drawdown of the popularity of your given name?

4)  Share your results in a blog post of your own, in comments to this blog post, or in a Facebook status or Google+ Stream post.

Here's mine:


1)  I chose "Randall" and the results by decade were:

1880s:  Rank = 654; Percent with Name = .0076%; Number = 89
1890s:  Rank = 740; Percent with Name = .0068%; Number = 84
1900s:  Rank = 609; Percent with Name = .0103%; Number = 151
1910s:  Rank = 457; Percent with Name = .0164%; Number = 1,140
1920s:  Rank = 428; Percent with Name = .0172%; Number = 1,954
1930s:  Rank = 316; Percent with Name = .0278%; Number = 3,015
1940s:  Rank = 132; Percent with Name = .1173%; Number = 17,754
1950s:  Rank = 58; Percent with Name = .3043%; Number = 62,367
1960s:  Rank = 65; Percent with Name = .2654%; Number = 52,049
1970s:  Rank = 122; Percent with Name = .1347%; Number = 23,020
1980s:  Rank = 148; Percent with Name = .1005%; Number = 19,308
1990s:  Rank = 270; Percent with Name = .0503%; Number = 10,319
2000s:  Rank = 570; Percent with Name = .0197%; Number = 3,749

2)  I also checked "Randy" and the results by decade were:

1940s:  Rank = 156; Percent with Name = .0935%; Number = 14,156
1950s:  Rank = 33; Percent with Name = .5875%; Number = 120,000
1960s:  Rank = 40; Percent with Name = .4786%; Number = 93,859
1970s:  Rank = 77; Percent with Name = .2137%; Number = 36,537
1980s:  Rank = 103; Percent with Name = .1535%; Number = 29,486
1990s:  Rank = 190; Percent with Name = .0817%; Number = 16,776
2000s:  Rank = 304; Percent with Name = .0489%; Number = 9,332

Apparently, before the 1940s, Randy was not a name ranked in the top 2,000 names.

Randall gained in popularity and peaked in the 1950s, and Randy peaked in the same decade.  In the 1950s, 0.8918% of all boy babies in the U.S. were named Randy or Randall (that's about 1 in 112.  That ratio is down to about 1 in 148 in the 2000s decade.

Since I was born in 1943, my parents named me while the name Randall was on the buildup to the popularity of the name, and Randy was just starting to appear on birth certificates.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/06/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-how.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

5 comments:

Emily Garber said...

Randy: It's not quite Saturday night in my timezone, but you got me inspired.
http://extrayad.blogspot.com/2012/06/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-how.html

Unknown said...

Hi, Randy, I got carried away on this one! My post is at
http://pastlane.blogspot.com/2012/06/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-how.html

Liv said...

Hi Randy,

Great activity tonight even though my results were a "bust" - LOL! Here's my link - http://claimingkin.com/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-how-popular-was-your-name/

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and Happy Father's Day to you as well!

Mel said...

A day late, but what the heck. Here's my findings: http://www.researchjournal.yourislandroutes.com/?p=3002

Thanks for the fun challenge, Randy!

Sara Gredler said...

Posted mine at http://sararoots.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-popular-was-your-name-sngf-saturday.html.

I knew that there was a reason there were always so many 'Sara'/'Sarah's in my classes!