Hello! My Name Is ________.

Since the time when we were deciding on names for our kids, I've been interested in trends in the popularity of baby names.

So I followed a link today to babynamemap.com, which allows visitors to browse and sort baby names by geography and popularity (using 2006 data). The interface is more than a little clunky, but it still makes for interesting browsing.

Discoveries:

Zachary was the 33rd most popular name for baby boys in the U.S. for 2006, one spot ahead of Caleb and one spot behind Jose.

Benjamin was the 24th most popular name for baby boys in the U.S. for 2006, one spot ahead of Samuel and one spot behind Nathan.

Phoebe was the 366th most popular name for baby girls in the U.S. for 2006, more popular than Kathleen (371), Denise (379), and Anne (460), but not at popular as Violet (261), Georgia (273), or London (353). Interesting.

I also discovered this nifty tool which graphs the popularity (in the U.S.) of any first name over the past 130 years.

Zachary is not in the top 1,000 boys names until the 1950s, but then becomes the 16th most popular name in the 1990s.

Phoebe is the 305th most popular girls name in 1890, falls out of the top 1,000 in the 1970s and 1980s, then is back up to #366 by 2006.

Benjamin goes from being 47th in the 1890s to 137th in the 1950s, then back up to 24th in 2006.

I love this stuff.

DISCLAIMER: No, we aren't planning on having any more kids. At the risk of being inappropriately self-disclosing, Houserspawn(tm) is out of the manufacturing buisness, and is now focused solely on the development and promotion of our existing prototypes.