Did you hear the new Top 100 Names? Not really.
Have you seen the headlines? Or maybe you heard the news on tv, or the radio: The Top 100 Baby Names of 2004!
One small problem: that information just isn't available. The Social Security Administration doesn't release its official figures until Spring '05. So what are hundreds of media outlets reporting on?
A Babycenter.com press release.
Give credit to the clever folks at Babycenter.com, a parenting web site owned by Johnson & Johnson. They looked at their many users, ready to answer polls and post birth announcements, and created an annual "BabyCenter Baby Names List." Then they sent out a press release announcing their top names.
What's wrong with this? Not a thing, and The Baby Name Wizard would doubtless do the same if she could get away with it. The problem is the press, large and small, happily reported these lists as "the most popular baby names in America in 2004." Despite the clear-cut, in-your-face evidence that Babycenter's lists are not a snapshot of America's babies. Listen up, reporters:
There are no Spanish names on the list.
In 2003, America's real top 100 boys' names included:
Alejandro, Antonio, Carlos, Diego, Jesus, José, Juan, Luis, and Miguel.
Not a one made Babycenter's list, in 2003 or 2004.
Whatever Babycenter is reporting on, it isn't America's babies. Their press release gives no clue where the names came from or how they were gathered. At best, they're names chosen by a self-selected sample of the kind of people who like Babycenter. (And I count myself among those, by the way.) We know it's a radically skewed sample, excluding Latino parents among others. At worst, we don't know that the babies they're reporting on even exist, since anyone can post to a public web site...any number of times.
It's a small problem in the grand scheme of things. But here at Baby Name Wizard Central, where name data is our bread and butter, we shed a silent tear for the parents basing their name choices on what they think is real data, because the news told them so.
Comments
What an eye-opener! And how astute of you to notice the lack of hispanic names!! This would make a very interesting newspaper or magazine article.
Just another perpatration by the Man to keep an Hermano down.......
I just checked, and their website does give a source. I quote: "The BabyCenter Baby Names List, which is the largest private list available, was compiled from more than 310,000 BabyCenter members who had babies in 2004. Our list combines names with the same pronunciation but different spellings to give a more accurate view of name popularity."So it's a list of the popularity of names among parents with internet access who joined their website. Useful for such parents to know what's popular among their peers, I guess.Thanks for the great website! I'm really enjoying it.
It's an interesting point, bc the overall popularity rankings don't necessarily zero in on the trend in your cohort... The year we had Isabel (one of 3-4 Isabels, Isabelles and Isabellas on our street), I breathed a sigh of relief that at least we didn't name her Charlotte, since every other baby girl we knew born that year seemed to be named Charlotte. Hot in our cohort this year? Maya and Mia -- I count at least 4-5 babies with this name from my cohort in the past year.
This is pretty ridiculous. America doesn't want statistics, it wants names and numbers that makes people happy!
who cares? People should name their children names that they like the sound of. It should not matter ethnic orgin or popularity of a name. Unless one would prefer a family name.
i JUST WISH PEOPLE WOULD QUIT EITHER MAKING UP NAMES, OR MISSPELLING THE ONES THAT THEY PICK.
it's nice to finally find a quality baby name website, i stumbled accross this and keep on coming back. very informative
jennie sure does like to use the word "cohort"!
wow. sarita and maria are names i hear all the time. this surprises me!amanda
interesting site. i'm not a very big fan of babycenter...the last time i checked its info on acceptable mercury levels for could-be moms and nursing moms were really outdated. better to check the FDA & EPA sites.
After all that reading, I'd still like to see the list of names!
I and my husband found this very interesting! We enjoyed checking names of all our grandchildren.
With no Hispanics joining the baby names website does that mean Hispanics have no need for the Babycentre site because they are confident about naming? Possibly the strong Roman Catholic influence means they go for a predominance of biblical names which they hear often in their community anyway, because it IS more of a community and doesn't need inspiration of peers on the web? - Interestingly enough (well it is to me) I arrived at this site because I was looking for a list of androgynous names to use in an assessment exercise. Now I have learned something about US society, the internet usage by budding parents and feel I've now done my target of learning one new thing per day!
Babycenter is a better pregnancy and parenting site than ivillage, so is this just a jealousy thing?
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