National name statistics give us a portrait of changing fashions. But in a big, diverse country like the United States, the national numbers are the product of many interlocking microclimates of style.
For some names, the primary influences are obvious. The name José, for instance, generally tracks the Census Bureau's stats for percentage of "Hispanic origin persons" in a state. (Except for New Mexico, which is a story for another day.) But some cultural influences are subtler. Take, for instance, the cases of Logan and Nicholas.
Logan is a Scottish name which took the classic path of place name to surname to male forename to androgynous forename. (Names like Leslie and Lindsay took the same path earlier, but unlike those names Logan seems to be reasserting itself as primarily male.) Logan got a boost from the '70s film and tv series Logan's Run, and another big boost in the past generation with the trends toward Celtic names, surnames, and names ending with -n. Logan currently ranks #27 among all boy's names.
Nicholas is an old saint's name, Greek in origin, which has been used in many forms and languages for over 1000 years. In the U.S. it's especially associated with the Christmas holiday thanks to the modern image of "Jolly Old Saint Nick." Nicholas was used steadily but lightly in the U.S. until the late 1970s (the same time as Logan's Run), when it started rising alongside other multisyllabic classics like Nathaniel and Benjamin. Nicholas currently ranks #13 among all boy's names.
Both names are part of the sound of the times, examples of major trends that have defined the past generation of names. You're far more likely to meet a 5-year-old named Logan or Nicholas than a 50-year-old. Both names are also used predominantly by white families. But culturally, the names diverge: Logan is a country boy, Nicholas is a city boy.
Looking state by state, the popularity of these names correlates strongly with population density. Logan is the #3 name in Iowa, South Dakota and West Virginia, but doesn't break the top 50 in California, Massachusetts or New York. Nicholas, meanwhile, hits the top 5 in places like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but doesn't come close in Alaska or Utah. And it's not just a matter of the coasts vs. the middle of the country--Logan is more popular in rural Maine and Vermont than in populous Illinois and Texas.
These names aren't individual anomalies, but representatives of distinct naming strains that define cultural regions. In general, names associated with surnames are far more common in low-population states. That includes boy's names like Parker and Tanner as well as girls like Mckenna and Riley. More densely packed areas tend to favor long New Testament and saint names (Nathaniel, Sebastian), and the "contemporary classics" (Matthew, Amanda).
The most interesting aspect of this, to me, is the cultural transmission of these differences. We hear so much about the homogenization of culture, and we tend to ascribe great power to mass media. But there's no media voice behind the Logan-Nicholas divide, nor any clear racial, religious or class distinction. By and large, Logan and Nicholas aren't names chosen as social signifiers. Parents choose the names because they "just like the sound," but that attraction is shaped by cultural forces we may barely recognize. So naming regions are more cultural than geographic: North Dakota and West Virginia may be far apart on the globe, but they're neighbors on the naming map.
Comments
I think Logan has a newer, fresher, trendier feel. Nicholas sounds more like a classic. It's been popular longer and even before that was more popular and steadier than Logan was. Thus, Nicholas is more popular in cities, where there are higher populations of immigrants, where people are more likely to be only a generation or two off the boat, looking for a standard American classic - not a pretty-boy name like Logan. Also, as you said, Nicholas has been used in many forms and many languages for ages, meaning that in a city, people with grandparents named Nicola, Nicholas, Nico, Nicolaas, Niccolo, Niku, and Nikolai will name their kids Nicholas. In the standard, homogenized, less-populated suburbia, more Logans make sense - they fit in with all of the other Tanners, Cadens, and Taylors.
This was a fascinating post on a topic that's never crossed my mind before. Thanks!
I knew it! I thought I was crazy looking that this site sometimes, since there are so many "popular" names that I never hear. Turns out I just need to get out of California.
I know two Logans in Chicago and I think it's growing in popularity.
I know three different women who have named a baby Logan, and all three admitted they first heard it when reading The Baby Sitters' Club books as children. Logan Bruno was the nice, cute boy with the southern accent who dated Mary Ann. I think a big part of the name's taking off comes from all of the girls who grew up reading those books now reaching childbearing age.
I disagree with the first poster, in that I bet the parents of a Nicholas are not usually going to be first generation Americans who wanted to fit in, but are relatively highly education professionals looking for a name that will sound good on their son from childhood through his own adult life as a well educated professional. I agree that Logan is trendier. It seems that urban populations avoid trendy names, (at least the trendy white names) while suburban/rural populations flock to them (again, relatively.)I think it would be fascinating to chart the populartity of names along red state/blue state lines, or blue city/red rural areas. I'm willing to bet Logan would come out red and Nicholas blue.
I've always wondered how 'popular' names travel so widely in rural areas. It amazes me how people in small, isolated towns catch on to the trendy names.Case in point: My sister-in-law, who lives in a coastal town with population 2,000, named her two daughters the #1 or #2 girl names of those years without knowing how common and popular they had become. Is it spread by word of mouth or through the media?
I think it's interesting that you say the names don't seem to be social signifiers, because I have to admit I associate the classic names that you refer to as urban with more educated parents. The names that you mention as more rural, have a less sophisticated sound to my ear. I agree with the poster that it would be interesting to see a comparison of "blue" and "red" names.
Example of an old Logan: Character actor [played the judge on "Soap" in the 70's, and prbably a lot more parts--Logan Ramsey. Nick seems to be common enough, but I've noticed the same thing myself. When I saw Country in the title I thought of geography, and my question is : How trendy are Geograhic Names? (in other words, names of people that are also names of Cities, states, countries, etc.? I know t6hat originally most geographic names where named after people, like Georgia, Maryland, etc. But I've seen some named Arizona, Verona, Canada, and in tody's paper there is a picture of a little boy, nhamed Hollywood. (Real name or nickname?
Rural vs City names: We had a secretery here, who was into Country music and all the culture; so when she had kids, she wanted to give them "Country names". So now she has an Austin, a Lucas, and a Travis. Any more, she would have had a Reba, a Sha-nie-ya, [as in Shania Twain--who I tease her by referring to Shawnya another quirk she's Sha-nye-ya on the Country stations, and called Sahwn-ya on the soft rock stations--same person] but my favorite quote from this person was that she wanted a Garth and a Toby {gender didn't matyter]. A step up from when she wanted soap opera names {olland and Taylor There's an actress named Holland Tayor..
Red State/Blue State angle is facinating. I have an idea on what's what, there; but will be interesting to see what you find. Although here in Pennsylvania has gone blue in the last two national elections; the real story is that it is mostly red outside of the corners Philly, Pittsburgh, Erie, and Scranton. But agree Red: more Syllables, blue less.Thought: how common is it for people to use First initials and middle names? I've hard this posed, but never concluded as to why ( sort of a concensus)or what for? Concensus says that Mother dictated this. I did it once to myself to attract attention. This seems to be prominent among "Red People" Lawyers, mostly.
The red/blue thing would be really fascinating, I think. I'm Canadian and flipping through the top names in certain states I think that Canada in general seems to follow the democratic states...so, is it just a rural/urban divide, or is there some sort of political thing to, as Canadians as a whole are much more comfortable with the Democrats than the GOP. Too bad Canada doesn't have the detailed name info that the SSA provides!-Eleanor from Nova Scotia
*to it , that is, and there's a ? missing too. -Eleanor the dyslexic nova scotian
What a fun post! I, too, first heard of "Logan" from the Baby-Sitters Club. And he was from (rural) Kentucky! And of course, let's not forget Wolverine of the X-Men, whose name (as far as he knows) is Logan, and he comes from a wealthy but rural family in Canada. It's one of those rare names that ought to act like Aidan but doesn't.
Possible link to American Politics, and Canada: In the 2004 Presidential elections, states that voted for John Kery (Blue States) either bordered Canada or boardered other blue states. One of the local newspapers here(Philadelphia Daily News) noticed this phenomenon, and ran with it; speculating that all of these states ought to be annexed as part of Canada. Since I live in one of them (Pa.) , I thought it was funny. To recap, one of the lines thought it would be funny to visit Disney Land, eh? And see a Canadian Broadway show. But anyway...
I remember reading an article a few years ago that said Emily tended to be the #1 name for girls in blue states, Madison the #1 in red states. I found this data, which seems (with a few exceptions) to indicate that there is a pretty strong political lean one way or the other:http://pregnancy.parenthood.com/articles.html?article_id=4607
I'm not sure whether this is an acceptable post or not, but people up here noticed the blue states bordering Canada phenomenon to...and called the two resultant geographic entities The United States of Canada and Jesusland. To make it relevant to naming, it would be very very interesting to see if there is a name divide along those lines. My guess is that yes, there would be, and that primary among the differences would be the proportion of made-up and creatively spelled names to "normal" ones.
Another media connection - the TV show "Eight is Enough" was on from 1977-1981 and featured a cute little boy named Nicholas.
Logan is the name of the Boston airport. I wonder if that name is very popular in Massachusetts? (I'd doubt it.) I wonder if any Logans have a brother named Kennedy and a sister named LaGuardia?
>>When I saw Country in the title I thought of geography, and my question is : How trendy are Geograhic Names? (in other words, names of people that are also names of Cities, states, countries, etc.?I also thought from the subject line that this post was going to be about geographic names. I would love to see a post on that! It seems to me that they are very trendy these days. There aren't a lot of people naming daughters Virginia and Georgia these days, and Elizabeth doesn't count because it was a name before it was a city in New Jersey, but look at all the Madisons, Dakotas, Brittanys and such.A co-worker of mine has a daughter named Montana. I taught a girl named Dallas. I also know of a Nebraska, although he is not a youngster.When I was a wee tyke addicted to Harvey Comics, a married couple showed up in one who were named Syracuse and Utica. Imagine my shock a few years later when I discovered these were the names of cities in New York (where I now live). I wonder if they had a son named Troy.
I stand corected. The little boy in the paper named Hollywood was Identified on TV as really named Brian. Hollywood is indeed a nick name, apparently because he likes movies.
What about the names that come from television? Particularly soap operas. Since I don't watch the soaps, I was bewildered when the name Mikayla became popular (though when I was a child I knew a "Michaela" - it's a derivative of "Michael" and the current popular spelling is wildly imaginative) until someone explained it to me. I believe Ashley started in the soaps as well. I'm sure there are many, many more names that did. Do you suppose there are more soap watchers in rural or urban areas?I live in rural (well it used to be - it isn't so much anymore) Texas, where the names Madison, Taylor, Morgan, and MacKenzie were very popular for a while for girls. Now those non-gender names are totally "out" and the very frilly names like Isabella and Theodora are in. We have Logans and Tylers everywhere among the boys.The biggest problem with giving your kid a popular name, in my opinion, is that you give away their age when they get older. Betty was born in the 1930s. Linda was born in the 1940s. Debbie was born in the 1950s. Lisa was born in the 1960s. Jennifer was born in the 1970s. Ashley was born in the 1980s. Brittany was born in the 1990s. Emma was born in the 2000s. I've never been a fan of popular names because of that, mainly. Unfortunately, I didn't do my research ahead of time and named my son Matthew, so I managed to do exactly what I set out NOT to do!!
To the poster above, actually, Matthew is a fine choice for a name. If you look at its graph on BabyName Wizard, it spans several decades. Old biblical names that are classically popular, (Daniel, Matthew, John, Joseph, etc.) are guaranteed not to date your child. But some Biblical names seem to have a currently trendy feel to them no matter how "old" they are, like Isaiah, Noah, Jonah, etc. If you look at their graphs they just spike up in recent years. So all biblical names aren't created equal. Daniel can be a middle aged guy, a teenager, or a baby. Elijah is almost always a little boy.
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SPEAKING OF BIBLICAL NAMES, I NAMED MY SONS AARON AND ABRAHAM. WELL AS IT TURNS OUT AARON IS A REALLY COMMON NAME FOUND EVERYWHERE, BUT ABRAHAM IS RARE. WHEN THERE ARE PERSONALIZED STUFF LIKE KEYCHAINS OR MAGNET I ALWAYS FIND AARON BUT NEVER ABRAHAM. AND IT SUCKS BECAUSE I CAN'T JUST BUY FOR ONE AND NOT THE OTHER. WHEN I NAMED HIM I HAD NO IDEA IT WAS THAT RARE.
I'm considering naming my son Logan and while I've never met a "real" one before, I know of 2 tv Logans: Rory's boyfriend on "The Gilmore Girls" and one of the kids on "Yes, Dear." Ironically, both are city kids: one from Hartford and the other from LA.
I have to disagree with the post regarding Logan being a red state and rural area name with uneducated parents. I am a pilot with multiple degrees and my husband is a police officer with a law degree. We lived in Seattle until two years ago and now live in a small town. We are also not republicans. To simply state a name is related to a certain social strata is underestimating the complicated decision of choosing a name. All other Logans that I have met are children in urban, educated and liberal areas of the country.
I am shocked and horrified at the thought of some one making the distinction that a name can be democratic or Republic. I am morally crieing out that somebody would thoughtlusly also say the name logan was an undereducated name. My cousin has a masters in oceanography form Cal Tech and she is going to name her baby "Logan Mathew Smith". In all my 34 years i have never been so peeved.
My son was born in 2004 and I named him Logan w/o ever looking at popularity charts. It's my maiden name and I always knew that whether I had a boy or girl, I would use the name. I have to say it kind of pisses me off that it's a popular name now. That wasn't my intention at all.
My son was named Logan back in 1998. I remember one of the nurses in the hospital commenting on how unique of a name!
I have never heard of Logan being a celtic name.....Logan is an Indian name. Try looking up Chief Logan and the state park named after him.
Chief John Logan was renamed after William Penn's secretary, John Logan, who was well known as being politically friendly to the Native Americans. His original name was Tahgahjute. ... Not that many people are going to believe it was historically a Native American name.
You changes sound great! Good luck to everyone in the election(s).
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