We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

 
Unlike the question of whether famous entertainers cause naming spikes, it's widely known that famous people are sometimes responsible for naming dearths. The names Adolf and Adolph, for example, precipitously dropped in popularity in the 1930s and 40s. It should come as no surprise that in contemporary naming surveys, people have negative opinions of Adolph and associate the name with cruelty.

It turns out, however, that Hillary has set a new record for name poisoning.

I used the Social Security Administration's name database to compare the popularity of the name Hillary against the 20 girls' names it was ranked nearest in 1992. Hillary had been climbing the charts for 30 years. In the 1970s it was ranked 512, in the 1980s it was 265, then 205 in 1990 and 173 in 1991. By 1992 it was ranked 136th. Here's the recent data:

	1992	1993	1996	1999	2002
Rachael	126	124	132	191	307
Sydney	127	111	41	24	23
Krystal	128	144	206	297	359
Kendra	129	130	137	171	230
Mackenzie	130	117	76	53	43
Leslie	131	139	120	100	94
Sierra	132	94	63	49	64
Destiny	133	116	59	29	34
Katrina	134	153	193	247	282
Adriana	135	140	144	128	131
Hillary	136	261	646	815	>1000
Alejandra	137	132	157	170	177
Valerie	138	143	150	154	154
Carly	139	142	131	175	208
Nancy	140	148	171	230	231
Hayley	141	129	124	143	195
Sandra	142	147	178	246	273
Karina	143	133	105	132	160
Madeline	144	128	67	70	56
Alexa	145	110	100	88	69
Savannah	146	100	44	42	40

Over the past decade some of the names climbed in popularity, some declined, and others remained stable. Only one name is no longer in the Top 1000: Hillary. Hillary dropped over 860 places in the rankings in just 10 years (because the SSA database only lists the top 1000 names, I don't know Hillary's 2002 rank, only that it wasn't in the top 1000). Krystal fared second-worst among the control group, but it only dropped 231 places, just 26% of Hillary's free-fall.

For perspective, consider that only one name that was in the Top 200 in 1992, Colleen, was ranked lower than 500 in 2002 (from 192 to 540). The worst that any name fared among the 1992 Top 250 was Barbara, which was at 560 in 2002. But unlike Hillary, which had been growing in popularity for the previous 30 years, the trajectories of Colleen and Barbara had been pointing southward for decades.

To return to the conventional wisdom of social scientists, here are the rankins on Adolph, the prototypical example of name poisoning, by decade: 1900s - 156; 1910s - 185; 1920s - 281; 1930s - 406; 1940s - 640; 1950s - 734; 1960s - 827. It wasn't until the 1970s that Adolph fell off the chart. Notice too that the name was in serious decline way before Hitler's reputation could have effected the name's popularity. Adolph's graph wouldn't look much different from that of Gilbert, Orville, or Wilmer.

Americans reacted against the name Hillary much faster and more severely than they did the name Adolph. It's also much clearer that the reaction was due to a famous person and not just a cyclical decline. Hillary Rodham Clinton has demolished her name's appeal in record time.
posted by Matt Evans at 7:40 AM

 

Quarter 1	C1	E1
Q2	Central 2	E2
Q3	C3	Eastern 3

posted by Matt Evans at 6:21 AM

 
Washington DC finally has a 4D fetal imaging studio! Baby Insight announced that they are opening an office in Potomac, Maryland this month. Their temporary website is at www.baby-insight.com.

posted by Matt Evans at 5:52 AM

 
Hi! The pro-life blog is now part of Created Equal. Our new address is createdequal.org/blog. While you're there, be sure to get your FREE Created Equal pro-life stickers.

posted by Matt Evans at 2:56 PM