Economy
Mapping the Spread of U.S. Baby Names Over the Past 100 Years
There was a clear north-south divide up through the 1970s, when this adorable geography began to scatter.
Sometimes science gives us a wealth of methodical analysis and informed observation with the potential to improve life for a great many people, if only it weren’t ignored by those who mistake their personal opinions for knowledge. And sometimes science gives us some super cool maps of baby names.
At least one of these descriptions fits a fun new study tracking the spread of newborn names across the United States over more than a century. The Rome-based research team behind the effort, recently published in PNAS, gathered annual statistics on popular baby names for each gender from the U.S. Social Security Administration from 1910 to 2012. They then measured which states shared more names in common than others.