Thursday, August 27, 2009

The Names Project

The annual list of most popular baby names is out, and once again it's a stinging indictment of our society, with the name of Britney Spears' "accident" RACING up the chart with a bullet (don't even get me started on the name Britney, either). That Jacob is still No. 1 for boys and Madison is still in the girls' Top 10 is pretty depressing too. But despite this disturbing news, the Social Security Web site that tracks this stuff (who says government data isn't useful?) is a totally fun way to kill a few hours. Kenneth ranked 136 in 2008, but was No. 22 the year I was born. (And No. 14 when my dad and twin brother Kenny were born.) The Top 20 from 1967 reads like a who's who of my high school class. Click HERE. to check out your name.

3 comments:

Sam said...

I love this post because I get so annoyed by stupid baby names. I wonder if Britney's mother realized she was naming her child after a (misspelled) region of France.

Mike said...

What's wrong with Jacob? It's a totally traditional name, a few thousand years old. It seems that your typical ire is reserved for made up or "creatively" spelled names - I don't see how Jacob fits into that mix.

BW said...

Fair question on Jacob, because the answer is fairly subtle. I'm guessing Kenneth is thinking what I'm thinking, which is that it's a sign of the "ugly olde-tyme boys' names are cute" fad that's nearly a decade old now -- Jake, Zack, Zeke, Jack. That was an outgrowth of the JJJJJJJ fad, wherein every boy born from 1988 to 2006 was Jason, Jared, Jaden, JarJar, Jehosephat ...