Global phone directories are a standard part of my name explorer toolkit. When a user submits a name like Wynagene to Namipedia saying "This is my grandmother's name," a directory search can give me a quick sense of how many other Grandma Wynagenes may be out there. (Answer: not many.) A couple of months ago, I tried out a new search from whitepages.com. It allowed convenient first-name only searches of the U.S., so I was happy to add it to my bookmark list. Until...
Last week, I heard from a PR rep promoting the official release of that tool as a baby name popularity search. They hoped I'd write about it. According to their official press release, whitepages.com is responding to "a growing trend to give babies uncommon names" by "making it easier for parents-to-be to identify unique names for their babies based on popularity rankings" which will "help new parents identify whether or not their desired name is as unique as 'Brooklyn' or 'Seraphina.'" The press release goes on to cite research about the increasing uniqueness of baby names, based on 2007 birth data.
I was so astonished that I did something I've never done before. I called the contact number on a promotional email. I told them, before their official press release, what I'm going to tell you now. They are misleading parents by suggesting that their directory can help identify uncommon baby names. What's more, they are misleading all their users by stating that they're counting the people in the United States with a given name. Their tool does neither.
Their own examples illustrate the problem. Whitepages says that they'll help you find "unique" names like Brooklyn. Now, why would you consider Brooklyn "unique"? The name has made the U.S. top-1000 charts for two decades straight. Last year alone there were 5,249 Brooklyns born in the United States, making it a top-50 girl's name. Ah, but that's not what whitepages.com thinks. According to them, Brooklyn is a rare name indeed. It ranks #7,576 in America. There are three times as many people named Sunshine as Brooklyn. And here's the grand national total, according to the big, bold result on their site:
"There are 1,036 people with the first name 'Brooklyn' in the United States."
Obviously, that's not even close to right. The problem is that whitepages.com, being a souped-up phone directory, isn't really counting "people" as their site claims. When I asked, their PR rep confirmed that by "people," they mean "adults." And from some experimenting with their site, I suspect they might really mean "adults with land lines." The percentage of young adults with land lines in their names shrinks daily. So the directory numbers massively favor the 30-80 demographic -- precisely the generations of names which are LEAST trendy today.
That makes turning to whitepages.com for baby name guidance a lot like turning to your grandma: they're a generation or two behind the times. The results can be pretty comical. Adelbert three times as common as Aiden? Six Myrtles in America for every Madison? And don't even ask about Novella vs. Nevaeh.
I might have let it pass with a chuckle if it weren't for the PR campaign, complete with statistics about babies they don't actually track, aimed directly at the expectant parents who care most about name popularity. If you actually talk to these parents as I do, you know this isn't a game. Choosing a baby name is a heartfelt act. Assuring a parent who truly, deeply wants an uncommon baby name that Brooklyn or Aiden is "unique" when you know you don't count folks born since Reagan left office is...umm...well, if you can think of a polite term to insert here, be my guest.
On a cheerier note, you can find a much more interesting take on population-wide name usage at WolframAlpha, the "computational knowledge engine." They use tricks like crossing birth data with mortality tables to make intelligent name population estimates. For instance, Wolfram estimates 37 times as many Brooklyns in America as whitepages does. Unfortunately, Wolfram's models break down for unusual names. (Estimated number of people named Calla alive: 0.) That means it will still take some creativity and cross-referencing to track down the likes of Grandma Wynagene.
Comments
Fascinating! I would agree that most people in the <30 demographic don't have land lines, very few of my friends do. It definitely seems like false advertising to use the name info the way they are!
Do you know how sites like www.howmanyofme.com stack up against sites like whitepages.com? It says they use Census Bureau information, but that's kind of vague. And I know several people who have been told by that website that they don't exist, since they have rare first and last names and the statistical odds are against their combination.
Laura-
Thank you! We come to you because we have come to trust your intellectual integrity!
Movie credits, class lists, and phone books are great for inspiration, but we come to you for data!
Wow, that is kind of scary. Just a reminder how things (especially numbers) can be made to sound like anything you want! Laura, did you get an answer from the company? Or are they just going ahead anyway?
and even those of us who are under 30 with landlines (that we have in case of emergencies because we live in places with bad cell phone reception) - many of us don't have our name on it - I only have initials (because I found out that while you can pay to have your number unlisted in the phonebook, there is no way to have an unlisted number online)
But even in the over 50 range - how many more male names are there going to be than female names? Most phone numbers are listed under the husband's name, and in the case of people my grandmother's generation - many of the widows don't mess with changing the name on the phone bill.
Yup, I was born just before Reagan went INTO office and they can't find me. My current landline is listed in my partner's name and while the site can find her, it considers her "household" to be her plus the girlfriend she lived with briefly in another state 15 years ago, and who I'm sure wouldn't be thrilled to have this linkage showing up under her name. So it's not necessarily great at actually finding people, what it's set up to do. Using it to find baby name data is just absurd.
Yep, there are lots of ways for people to not show up in these directories (or to show up 2 or 3 times). If that were just random noise I could live with it. But it's nowhere near random. They've chopped off an entire generation.
What really gets me is that this makes the search literally WORSE THAN USELESS for baby name trends -- it systematically points you in the wrong direction! Ignoring the most recent generation gives you a kind of inverse of the real trend curve. The more a name has risen into fashion in the past 25 years the more whitepages understates its popularity, and vice versa.
What methods for looking for names are popular with parents? Off the top of my head, there's general exposure--the names we hear around us, there's family, entertainment, baby books, websites...
For me, I try to stay exposed to lots of different cultures and learn more that way. Read a lot, note the naming. I try to look for multiple sources for information (and still sometimes come away misinformed).
What advice can we give parents to learn about new names and know that a given name is trendy, popular, uncommon, whatever? How can we help make sure that parents can avoid misinformation like this?
Wow--that's fairly uncomfortable on whitepages' part. I've been assuming they just wanted a fun widget to add to their website, and I've been having a great time with that thing. Knowing they want to market it to parents looking for modern-sounding-but-uncommon baby names is rather disconcerting.
That said, if you just want to look for names that're uncommon across the board, it's a really neat tool. (Who knew that there's apparently at least one Oedward out there? Awesome bit of soundplay, parental units of yore!) Many of my tastes aren't terribly fashionable at the moment, so I've been finding it quite helpful!
Novella -- the "v," the "ella" -- does seem to have the makings of a trendy name...
Woot! Go Laura! Take down those bad-baby-name-data folks!!
I wanted to give folks here an update on the newest name in our family. After all the debating between Soren v. Graham v. Neil or Phoebe v. Ruby v. Linnea, we welcomed a little girl on the 30th of October and named her Phoebe Louise Claire LN. We couldn't agree between the two middle names and so we're going to go rogue and use both. Thanks for all the help and opinions--I enjoyed the discussion during the whole process.
cileag- Congratulations! I think Phoebe Louise Claire is lovely! This is a great double middle name and a nice way to compromise. Best wishes on the new period in your life:)
@cileag, congratulations! I love all three names you chose--beautiful! Welcome, baby Phoebe.
Not to mention, of course, that they are directly competing with the namevoyager! but, i'm sure they don't have anywhere near as cool an interface!
on another note: we are looking for name suggestions.... its too early to know gender, but here are the parameters...
we want either biblical (OT) names, or names with Hebrew roots/translations... I really like Akiva but the wife has vetoed that because the ending sounds too much like her name. I like Chana, but that is out because of the initial gutteral sound that most english speakers can't pronounce. Hana or Hannnah is too popular. As is Isiah, which I think is ok, but the wife likes.
Last name is a one-syllable name starting with Sh-sound.
Thanks for suggestions.
oh. i see how my user name appears... so you can probably figure out my last name!
It not only skews the data by age, I suspect people are more likely to list their full names in the white pages if they are common names. I always know it is a telemarketer if the person asks to speak to 'Michael'. Women who live alone also tend to list under initials. Totally inaccurate.
But, I do think it would be interesting for genealogy purposes. If there's an unusual name that runs in your family, you could see who else has that name.
Louise and Claire are two of my favorite names -- great choices! And congrats to you and welcome to the new little one!
whitepages.com is fairly useless in general. Whenever I try to use it for work, I get frustrated pretty quickly and just turn to the real phone book.
And the generational thing. I have not appeared in any phonebook for the last eight years.
Anne with an E: That site (probably correctly) predicts that there is one or fewer (!) of me existing. That jives with other social statistics data I've checked in the past.
How absolutely infuriating. How good of you to call them and not scream "you don't get it."
And, an interesting note to add on to Saya's point (#4): a friend of mine has realized that she doesn't have to pay the unlisted fee if she just lists her number under a made up name. Conveniently, her number isn't a "private caller," just her fictitious telephonic alter-ego. But that certainly would skew the Popular Names of People With Landline Lists.
cileag: Congratulations, and welcome baby Phoebe! Phoebe Louise Claire is a gorgeous name, and I hope you guys are all doing well!
Oh, and count me in as another adult with no landline. It's frustrating that whitepages.com would try to present their data that way. Looking at trends of names listed in the phone book could be fun in and of itself, without it falsely advertising itself as baby name popularity statistics.
@jenjen, ooh I like that idea. Maybe I'll get a landline as Jane Eyre!
sjscher -- my current favorite OT name is Boaz (it will likely end up as the middle name of this baby if it's a boy). Other possibilities:
Japheth
Asa
Esther
Hadassah (I noticed this jumped into the top 1000 in 2008)
Feel free to veto/redirect as necessary -- it may help others provide better options.
cileag, congratulations on baby Phoebe! (And I'm another who's all for two middle names.)
cileag-- Of the three first names under consideration-- Phoebe, Ruby and Linnea, in picking Phoebe you went with the most classic and my personal favorite! I don't think you'll ever regret such a timeless choice...
Note to Jenny L3igh regarding house-name discussion in previous thread: Love your cottage's "Ocean Peek/Peak" name!
Question to anyone knowledgeable: Why do bed-and-breakfasts often have birds in their names-- e.g. "Gull Haven", or "The Wandering Cormorant" etc? Just for the romance of it?
Wow, it's lucky Laura is around to turn her laser-like gaze on the practices of these misleading whitepages. I'm continually amazed at her ability to get far 'into the weeds' in these issues. Good job!
sjscher - Any of these close to your style?
Asher
Ezra
Gideon
Gilead
Isaac
Simon
Caleb
Marah
Abigail
I'd love to know more about Akiva! The entry in Namipedia is lacking many details.
Jillc-- Thumbs up to Boaz. My favorite of your boys' possibilities, but all are appealing.
Like both Esther and Hadassah. Esther of course sweetly traditional, and Hadassah seeming slightly more cutting edge (and an appealing real-life Hadassah in the chic Hadassah Leiberman).
The other group besides Jews favoring the lovely Hadassah were 17th century English Puritans...
Oh, I thought jillc was requesting feedback for HER baby name choices, but I see she was providing suggestions to sjcher! Anyway, I endorse all of those...
No takers yet for Adoniram, I see!
"a friend of mine has realized that she doesn't have to pay the unlisted fee if she just lists her number under a made up name. Conveniently, her number isn't a 'private caller,' just her fictitious telephonic alter-ego."
Ooh, a semi-real world alter ego! What a great naming opportunity. :-) I like the literary approach -- "Cassandra Mortmain" was the first name that leaped to my mind.
What kind of braintrust would think that a list of some ADULTS would be a good calculator of baby names, or that the people they are marketing it to are too stupid to figure that out? LOL!
cileag, congrats! I especially love Louise as a middle name.
sjscher, for girls it seems like your taste is quite feminine and a little more unique than Rachel and Rebecca. Until I noticed your last name I was going to suggest Shoshanah - I think that might be a bit TOO much alliteration!
I like the Esther suggestion. Devorah, Noa, Tamar, Naomi?
For boys I think I would need more information...
old testament boys names: the first things that come to mind are:
ambrose
absalom
amos
i love that trio. :]
Hi Laura-
I got that promotional email from whitepages.com and immediately hit delete. When you've seen NameVoyager, NameMapper, and this blog (not to mention the BNW book that we used to name both our children), a phone directory query falls desperately short of the mark.
While our geek parenting blog advocates land lines for a lot of safety reasons, we don't advocate land line directories for any general demographic information.
We appreciate your tools so much that we've had a link to NameVoyager in our sidebar since starting out in 2006, and we always recommend Baby Name Wizard for expectant parents (like here: http://babytoolkit.blogspot.com/2007/05/naming-babies-early-introduction...).
I really appreciated your le-a comments. In May '07 I wrote the Freakonomics authors about their inclusion of urban legends as real. Their responses were interesting.
Thanks for all the great linguistic entertainment (in addition to the naming insights)!
In my understanding of howmanyofme, they use the Census to determine the probability of someone having your name. My sister, Amelia Lastname, is supposedly the only one. However, there are two other Amelia Lastname in Montana alone! She got pulled over and found out about a warrant out for one other Amelia Lastname. The trooper even told her he'd already pulled over another Amelia Lastname, not the one they were looking for! My mother, Margo Lastname, supposedly doesn't even exist. That site claims there aren't any in the US. So, I wold take it with a grain of salt.
And, I forgot to mention, my maiden name isn't even that rare! There is a famous artist, a sports trophy, and a politician with the last name. It's even similar to other, more common names, and a shopping chain is one letter off of it.
Thanks for this, Laura. How ridiculous!
Eo- Re: House names with birds in the title- both gulls and cormorants are sea birds. My guess is that it's part of the British obsession with the seaside, and, specifically, owning a little home by the sea. In previous generations this was considered a real coup, and of course, once you owned your own home you could give it a name. So, I've seen many more named dwellings at the seaside than I have anywhere else. It's rather endearing and a bit outdated now, I think.
cileag- Many congrats on the birth of Phoebe Louise Claire. She sounds very English. Are you English?
I knew I'd get lots of suggestions on this list!
Hadn't thought of Amos, and might run that one by the wife tonite.
Boaz & Naomi: Both of these come from the Book of Ruth, which is read on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. The baby is due around that time, and so I've thought about those... probably Boaz as a middle name, not first. Naomi I like.
We were discussing Ezra today, but the wife has a good childhood friend by that name, so wonders if it would be too weird.
I like Asher (and Shira), but both are out given my last name. Shoshana (NN: Shani) actually came up in discussion, but is probably out because it is related to my MiL's name, and that's a no-no in our culture. That also eliminates Simon & Isaac.
marah means bitter. I don't want that association with my child. also, too close to sister, Malkah...
Keep those suggestions coming! Thanks.
The Norvegian and Danish "State Statistics" websites have a similar search function where you can see how many occurrences there are of any first and/or last name. All (legal) permanent residents are registered so it should be pretty accurate.
Example: There are 21 Phoebe's in Norway and 40 in Denmark. Very, very useful information, isn't it ;-)
Eo, I've loved Adoniram Judson's name for a long time---it has such a pleasant, um, mouthfeel. I don't think it will ever make it onto any of my children, however :)
I hadn't even gotten through the first few lines of the post and I thought 'uh-oh', I could see exactly where it was going. Using a phone directory to predict baby names is never going to end well. How many babies do we all know with phone lines?
I used to have the landline in my name, then my husband (then boyf moved in with me, phone was still in my name). When we moved into our current house, it was put into his name because he rang up and organised it, no other reason. I now don't exist. He didn't for awhile either between houses. Alot of our friends have gone to not having landlines, so they have dropped off the radar, and most couples only have the phone in one name. Even my parents, who are in their 50's are considering getting rid of their landline as they don't use it that much anymore either. I can imagine these statistics are going to get even worse soon!
I've also found a good way to find if their are other people out there with your name is to google yourself. Not foolproof, but turns up interesting results. Also good for finding out use of potential babynames. I know alot of people have been searching for baby name combos on facebook too, and have even messaged people with a potential name they like to ask them questions.
@cileag, congrats on Phoebe Louise Claire, you had such lovely names to pick from and you did well!
Some Hebrew names for sjscher:
Adar
Alon
Ari
Dov
Eitan/Eytan
Eran
Itai
Meir
Moshe
Nadav
Noam
Oren
Reuben/Reuven
Zev/Ze'ev
Adina
Amalia
Avital
Ayelet
Dinah
Galit
Leora/Liora
Liat
Maor
Orli
Rona/Ronit
Sivan
Talia
Tamar
Tirzah
Tova
Yael
I like Naomi a lot, especially if the timing is right. I keep wanting to suggest Sh names like Shoshana and Shifra, but I agree that is a bit much with your last name.
Keep letting us know which ones you like and don't - it will help us (and you) get a sense of your style.
sjscher - if you like Chana, have you considered Chaya? I knew a girl by that name in college and I always thought it was beautiful on her. People who couldn't pronounce the Ch- just said it with an H sound, and it's still pretty. I also have an Israeli friend named Daphna, which I always thought was very pretty and more unexpected than the usual -e ending (there is also a character in the novel Exodus named Dafna). I have also always really liked Talia.
Laura - I actually wanted to laugh at the false advertisement from whitepages. My very first thought was, "but babies don't have telephones, and the children of the family aren't listed." Thank you for calling them back and telling them that they were lying through their teeth to overly-trusting parents-to-be, and then posting here so parents-to-be can have a heads up.
Cileag - Congratulations! Phoebe Louise Claire is a gorgeous name. You did good. Enjoy your babymoon!
sjscher - Congratulations on expecting! The others have already given you a lot of good suggestions. How about Solomon or Ruth? There's also Nathan, Micah, Abram/Abraham, Dan, Ephraim, Samuel, Saul, Aaron, Deborah, Keziah, Jael, Eve and Sarai/Sarah. Sorry that most of those are pretty ordinary. I'd suggest Miriam, too, but you said you didn't want the "bitter" meaning. However, my SIL had a "bitter" based name as one of her middle names, and she interprets her entire name to mean something like "one who overcomes bitterness with enthusiasm". That may be one way to work with any name with a negative meaning.
Wait, your babies don't have their own phone lines?!? That's crazy!! What, do you guys just let them tie up the house phone with all the incessant adoring grandparent calls?? I don't know what we'd do if Ivy didn't have her own line!!!
Um, right. Talk about a dumb idea from whitepages.com. Did they just not think it through (like, at all???), or do they not care that they're making blatantly false and misleading claims about the service they are purporting to provide?
Oh, and congratulations cileag!!! :)
Thanks for all the comments. We're not actually English, Valerie, although we did find that we liked many of the British names from the Baby Name Wizard, so it's definitely our style.
First off-^5 (high five for those not familiar w internet speak) to Jenny L3igh for being a fellow New Englander.
Cileag-a ^5 to you too on a wonderful addition. Don't forget to get her that phone she'll need for Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate. LOL!
sjscher-You have received many wondeful ideas already so I will just second Naomi, Deborah, Asher, Ari, and Micah which could be adrogynous in my book.
Now, regarding the topic at hand. How absurd! I have used whitepages.com for genealogy purposes and to find friends (not on facebook or those kind of things). I've also used it much like a "googling" and tried to see how many of myself and family and friends there are. Now I've found myself and some family and friends as well but not everyone is listed. I have also found that you can request to be taken off sites like this if you contact them. So:
a) does not account for anyone w/o a landline
b) does not account for people listed with alternate name or initials
c) does not account for people who don't want to be there
How then can they market this as accounting for ALL the people in the nation. Again I say, Absurd! Better to google or use any of the number of other much more helpful tools Laura and (i'm sure others too) have already created. Or just go to the park/mall/etc. for a few hours and listen to moms call out names.
cileag, I love the name Phoebe, and Phoebe Louise Claire combines three substantial names. Wonderful combination!
I have a friend who uses patronymics for his phone book name. His name is John and his dad's name is David, so instead of John Lastname, he goes by John Davidson.
sjscher,
I like Aviva, which is Hebrew for "springtime." There's also my name Tirzah. I've always defined it as "pleasant and delightful," but I've also seen "favorable" and "pleasurable(!)." All good meanings, regardless. Tirzah is a beautiful city (See Song of Solomon) and one of the first female landowners (see Numbers).
If those are too unusual for you, here's another vote for Talia ("dew from God").
sjscher, an OT name I love for a boy is Jotham.
When I try to figure out the popularity of a name (now that the UK has scrapped anouncing the top 100 for the year -grrr!) I try googling "Baby (insert name) to see how many blogs, forum posts etc I come up with.
Sometimes I select the option UK only, since US and UK can have quite different trends.
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