Baby names

Here's a cool tool that allows you to track the popularity of baby names over the decades.

Those two Gen X workhorses -- Jason and Kimberly (and its variations) -- rose and fell over the same 30 year period, though Kimberly has had more longevity at either end of the bell curve than Jason. It's interesting to see how certain names have all but died -- Dorothy, say, or Murphy. It's also fascinating to chart the rise, the fall, and rise again of certain names -- Jack, say, which was huge in the 1930s, then fell precipitously, only to start a steep climb back up in the 1990s, continuing today.

And check out Mary, the No 1. female name from 1880 through 1960, falling only to No. 2 in the 1960s. It began to decline in the 1970s, and today, it's at 93. But: Maria is twice as popular today. Hmm.

Via Nick Gillespie, who notes that baby names today are far more diverse than in the 1950s -- and he's not talking about people who give their children unusual names like Apple or Shatarshia (there was a Shatarshia in my school, and also a Zoeffria, though everybody called him Bubba).

UPDATE: Steve Sailer has an interesting post (when does he not?) about accents and social position. He focuses on how sounding black or Southern is a pretty good predictor that you won't make as much money as those who don't. Money graf:

Whether black or Southern, it's part of the homeboy phenomenon. Using a neutral national accent suggests you are willing to do what it takes to get ahead in this country, while using a subgroup accent suggests you are loyal to the values of your neighborhood and aren't as willing to make sacrifices.

I've written before about how somehow -- no doubt through television -- I absorbed the lesson in childhood that having a distinct Southern accent was a Bad Thing. No kidding, I think it had something to do with Jimmy Carter's presidency, which lasted in the formative years of ages 9 to 13 for me. I unconsciously concluded that sounding like a Southerner indicated incompetence (this, even though I sounded like a Southerner, and everybody around me sounded like a Southerner). At some point, I worked hard to develop a neutral accent as a cultural marker. It was greatly helped by the fact that one of the biggest bullies in my school was a proud ignoramus who spoke with a loud, braying redneck homeboy accent). I was going places. My sister teased me constantly about "sounding fake," and she wasn't wrong. But at some point, that became my accent.

Now, at age 41, I find that I wish I spoke more "Southern" -- but then again, I no longer feel that I have anything to prove in terms of professional advancement, re: being kept down because of the way I speak. Still, there it is. I am reminded, though, when I talk to or with college students how little they appreciate how their language tics (the "Like, OMG" stuff) really will hurt them in an office setting. They'll learn.

Anyway, getting back to the names discussion, I wonder if it ever occurs to people who consider giving their children names like DeMontrae that you never see anybody in positions of authority with those names. Mind you, there are plenty of lower-class Johns and Brians, but very few upwardly mobile DeMontraes. Does the name keep them down, or, following Sailer, is the name the marker of a class that doesn't prize upward mobility and cultivate aspirational values?

Why is it that names that strike the Anglophone ear as at least as weird as DeMontrae -- I'm thinking Indian names, like Vinjay -- carry none of the underclass markers of a DeMontrae? Because people are accustomed of thinking of South Asians as middle-class and aspirational. You see somebody named Vinjay, you immediately think that that kid is going places because he probably comes from a family that expects that of him. DeMontrae? Not so much.