cool chart. what comes between “jessica (again)” and “emily” ? also, what explains the big, but short lived popularity of Linda?
EDIT: apparently it’s because of a hit 1946 song called Linda (thanks u/aspiringtroublemaker ):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_(1946_song)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_(1946_song))
nouskeys on
Jessica’s were trying to supplant Jane’s of the house Doe back then.
Lekstil on
I like that graph. What’s up with Jessica and Ashley being so perfectly overlapping for over 10 years? Any explanation for that?
jetpackiceberg on
Most female names end with a vowel or a y, excluding shortened variants.
Male names are the opposite ending in a consonants.
Jennifer, Sarah, Rachel being an examples of exemptions of the rule.
iwishihadnobones on
I appreciate this graph immensely
BioFrosted on
Mary (again) is a weird name to give to a kid
MallyOhMy on
I do a good deal of archival at work. I once decided to look up just how common some names were in the year I was working on.
In that random year’s records, a solid 5% of all patients were named some variation of Mary.
Honorable mention, however, goes to the name Linda, because we one had 4 different Lindas with the same last name in the same year.
Dishonorable mention goes to Barbara, because I first looked at name frequency because I was annoyed at how many times I was typing that name and I was pissed at some of the spelling variations (like Barbra and Barbarah)
nathrek on
This is fantastic. Love the ability to see the top line key takeout quickly and easily while also being able to zoom in for finer details on the rise and fall of each name.
Space4Time on
lol I’ve dated at least 1 of each of these. 3 Linda’s.
Thank God for pet names
mladi_gospodin on
UK also had a sharp rise of Lindas almost at the same time. Did this trend originate in the US or vice-versa?
JoeyLee911 on
I want to see the boy name version.
noblerare on
Really surprised “Brittany” wasn’t the most popular name in the 90s
danielleiellle on
Laughing because my mom was a Mary and her sister is Lisa. Both during their respective runs on this chart.
![[OC] America's most popular girl name, 1880-2008](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/mz568m4rcyrg1-1536x1158.png "[OC] America’s most popular girl name, 1880-2008")
15 Comments
Data: [https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html)
Built using pandas, matplotlib, scipy
Explored with [data.tablepage.ai/d/us-baby-name-popularity-1880-2008](http://data.tablepage.ai/d/us-baby-name-popularity-1880-2008)
cool chart. what comes between “jessica (again)” and “emily” ? also, what explains the big, but short lived popularity of Linda?
EDIT: apparently it’s because of a hit 1946 song called Linda (thanks u/aspiringtroublemaker ):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_(1946_song)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_(1946_song))
Jessica’s were trying to supplant Jane’s of the house Doe back then.
I like that graph. What’s up with Jessica and Ashley being so perfectly overlapping for over 10 years? Any explanation for that?
Most female names end with a vowel or a y, excluding shortened variants.
Male names are the opposite ending in a consonants.
Jennifer, Sarah, Rachel being an examples of exemptions of the rule.
I appreciate this graph immensely
Mary (again) is a weird name to give to a kid
I do a good deal of archival at work. I once decided to look up just how common some names were in the year I was working on.
In that random year’s records, a solid 5% of all patients were named some variation of Mary.
Honorable mention, however, goes to the name Linda, because we one had 4 different Lindas with the same last name in the same year.
Dishonorable mention goes to Barbara, because I first looked at name frequency because I was annoyed at how many times I was typing that name and I was pissed at some of the spelling variations (like Barbra and Barbarah)
This is fantastic. Love the ability to see the top line key takeout quickly and easily while also being able to zoom in for finer details on the rise and fall of each name.
lol I’ve dated at least 1 of each of these. 3 Linda’s.
Thank God for pet names
UK also had a sharp rise of Lindas almost at the same time. Did this trend originate in the US or vice-versa?
I want to see the boy name version.
Really surprised “Brittany” wasn’t the most popular name in the 90s
Laughing because my mom was a Mary and her sister is Lisa. Both during their respective runs on this chart.
There’s something about Mary