Number crunching: or, why rankings can be deceptive
I've been doing some number crunching on the 2011 girls' list just for funsies, and I've noticed something interesting about the rankings: there are a considerable number of names for which the movement in the rankings does not correspond with the movement in the raw numbers. For the viewing pleasure of those name nerds like me who like data, I present:
Names that look like they're rising when they're not:
Rose in rankings, dropped in numbers
- Elizabeth #11 (rose 1 spot in rankings, dropped by 163 babies)
- Ella #12 (rose 1 spot in rankings, dropped by 295 babies)
- Kimberly #67 (rose 1 spot in rankings, dropped by 67 babies)
- Mackenzie #68 (rose 1 spot in rankings, dropped by 79 babies)
- Kylee #138 (rose 1 spot in rankings, dropped by 36 babies)
- Madeleine #319 (rose 1 spot in rankings, dropped by 11 babies)
- Grace #16 (rose 2 spots in rankings, dropped by 38 babies)
- Arianna #52 (rose 2 spots in rankings, dropped by 136 babies)
- Jade #113 (rose 2 spots in rankings, dropped by 40 babies)
- Alondra #248 (rose 2 spots in rankings, dropped by 4 babies)
- Laura #273 (rose 2 spots in rankings, dropped by 39 babies)
- Anabelle #473 (rose 2 spots in rankings, dropped by 8 babies)
- Marilyn #545 (rose 2 spots in rankings, dropped by 1 baby)
- Hayleigh #829 (rose 2 spots in rankings, dropped by 4 babies)
- Claire #50 (rose 3 spots in rankings, dropped by 14 babies)
- Anaya #475 (rose 3 spots in rankings, dropped by 7 babies)
- Charity #852 (rose 3 spots in rankings, dropped by 3 babies)
- Lilly #103 (rose 4 spots in rankings, dropped by 17 babies)
- Ruby #109 (rose 4 spots in rankings, dropped by 29 babies)
- Josie #256 (rose 4 spots in rankings, dropped by 7 babies)
- Celeste #453 (rose 4 spots in rankings, dropped by 3 babies)
- Araceli #818 (rose 4 spots in rankings, dropped by 2 babies)
- Kiara #320 (rose 5 spots in rankings, dropped by 3 babies)
- Arielle #501 (rose 5 spots in rankings, dropped by 4 babies)
- Jaycee #515 (rose 5 spots in rankings, dropped by 2 babies)
- Joslyn #631 (rose 5 spots in rankings, dropped by 11 babies
- Clare #679 (rose 5 spots in rankings, dropped by 3 babies)
- Irene #689 (rose 5 spots in rankings, dropped by 3 babies)
- Briley #650 (rose 6 spots in rankings, dropped by 8 babies)
- Hana #837 (rose 7 spots in rankings, dropped by 3 babies)
- Meredith #595 (rose 8 spots in rankings, dropped by 5 babies)
- Celia #735 (rose 8 spots in rankings, dropped by 1 baby)
Rose in rankings, no change in numbers
- Sylvia #554 (rose by 1 spot in rankings)
- Britney #908 (rose by 1 spot in rankings)
- Mattie #933 (rose by 2 spots in rankings)
- Zaniyah #740 (rose by 6 spots in rankings)
- Ali #713 (rose by 13 spots in rankings)
- Anne #593 (rose by 15 spots in rankings)
Names that look like they're falling when they're not:
Dropped in rankings & rose in numbers
- Margaret #187 (dropped 5 spots in rankings, rose by 5 babies)
- Adrianna #177 (dropped 4 spots in rankings, rose by 2 babies)
- Juliana #147 (dropped 1 spot in rankings, rose by 4 babies)
- Valentina #153 (dropped 1 spot in rankings, rose by 21 babies)
No change in numbers, dropped in rankings
- Harley #436 (dropped 3 spots in rankings)
Names that look like they're not changing when they are:
No change in rankings, dropped in numbers
- Emily #6 (dropped by 8 babies)
- Abigail #7 (dropped by 975 babies)
- Madison #8 (dropped by 772 babies)
- Natalie #14 (dropped by 122 babies)
- Rylee #102 (dropped by 97 babies)
- Izabella #140 (dropped by 47 babies)
- Aileen #466 (dropped by 10 babies)
- Priscilla #487 (dropped by 10 babies)
- Jaelynn #504 (dropped by 8 babies)
- Carolyn #741 (dropped by 4 babies)
No change in rankings, rose in numbers
- Emma #3 (rose by 1,495 babies)
- Olivia #4 (rose by 309 babies)
- Ava #5 (rose by 83 babies)
- Zoe #31 (rose by 34 babies)
- Alexandria #205 (rose by 20 babies)
- Chelsea #222 (rose by 12 babies)
By EVie
Thu, 07/05/2012 - 2:35pm
Thu, 07/05/2012 - 2:35pm
Replies
Interesting work EVie!
It seems that most of the ones that rose in ranking but dropped in baby numbers the change was pretty marginal on both counts (a couple of spots, only a few babies).
Ali and Anne are interesting. I don't think 13/15 spots in rankings is actually that much when you are in the 700s (obviously not in this case as they had the same number of babies).
Abigail and Madison did drop by quite a lot of babies but no change in rankings. 975 for Abigail seems like a lot not to change rank!!
Emma moving up by 1495 babies is pretty impressive. It shows how much rooom there is to move at the top, or at least how many people use those names, showing even a rise that big cannot affect ranking.
Yeah, most of the changes were pretty marginal. What I found most interesting was looking at it as a whole—how many more names appeared to be rising when they were actually falling than vice versa. It's just more evidence of the diversification of the name pool and how "popular" isn't what it used to be. The one exception seems to be at the very top of the list. Emma, for example, is #3 with 18,674 babies, which is more than in 2009 when it was #2 with 17,856, and nearly as many as 2008 when it was #1 with 18,781. Of course, Emma's numbers in 2008 were particularly low for a #1 name—if you go back only as far as 2005, Emily was at 23,914, higher than Isabella went in 2010 (when we were all talking about how for the first time the girls' #1 was higher than the boys').
I think the reason so many names fell in terms of numbers is because fewer babies were born last year than the year before. If you want to see a name's change in popularity without the birthrate entering the equation, look at the percentages instead. (If you look at the older stats in terms of numbers you'll see lots of names that "spiked up" between 1945 and 1947!)
Excellent point, Kelly. That makes it even more impressive that the top three names are being given to more babies! I wonder if this has to do with the fact that the top three names appeal to Spanish-speaking parents more than in years past. Hmmm....
That is an interesting list! How much DOES the US birthrate swing from year to year lately?
Since the economic collapse in 2008 it's gone down a bit each year (probably because of uncertainty in the economy fewer people are choosing to have babies, much like what happened during the Depression era).