Prepoceros

I like statistics. A lot. Give me a big ol’ table of raw data to stare at and I’m good for the afternoon.

So when I stumbled across the NameVoyager earlier this evening, I couldn’t help but be enthralled. Not only are the data (popularity of baby names from the 1880s to 2004) themselves interesting, the visualization is perhaps the most fascinating representation of a dataset that I’ve ever seen.

I can’t explain it well—you’ll have to go try it for yourself. (But wait until you have a free hour or two.) Click on one of the bars, or start typing a name into the box at the top and see what happens. Mouseover the names that pop up to see their relative popularity in each decade.

Before you’ve explored too deeply, though, you can play a little game I made up. Yes? You want to play? Smart move. It’s fun, I promise.

Ok, here’s the deal: without peeking at the pretty name charts, write down your guesses for the top 10 girls’ names and the top 10 boys’ names for the decade in which you were born. Think of your kindergarten class, your soccer team, the people you work with—anyone who’s about your age. Spelling matters (e.g., John and Jon are different names).

Now go look up all those names and note their actual rank (again, for the decade of your birth). Your score is the sum of these ranks. A perfect score would be 55 in either gender, or 110 combined. The order you list the names doesn’t matter.

This scoring method, as I’ve learned the hard way, is highly sensitive to outliers. One dud in the 50s can blow the whole thing. But these are the arbitrary rules of my made-up game, so that’s the way it’s gonna be.

I’ve hidden my own answers below the fold (no peeking!) so as not to spoil your fun. So go on, get out your pen and paper, back of an envelope, shirtsleeve, whatever. You know you want to. The score to beat (mine) is 147 (6 correct) for girls and 180 (4 correct) for boys.

***
***
As far as I can tell, RSS completely disregards the fold here. So if you’re reading this through an aggregator, this would be the place to stop.
***
***

Done? No cheating? Alrighty then, here were my guesses for the 1980’s:

Girls — Stephanie(6) + Sarah(5) + Elizabeth(9) + Jennifer(2) + Lauren(19) + Lindsay(44) + Kelly(29) + Melissa(7) + Emily(25) + Jessica(1) = 147

Boys — Michael(1) + Joshua(4) + Ryan(14) + John(9) + William(15) + James(6) + Eric(21) + Mark(34) + Bryan(51) + Steven(25) = 180

I would’ve thought the guys would be easier, since boys’ names vary much less, but I made some pretty bad choices. I picked the right Steven(25)/Stephen(36) but the wrong Bryan(51)/Brian(16). I left out Christopher(2), Matthew(3), David(5), Daniel(7), Robert(8), and Joseph(10).

Christopher?! How could I forget Christopher? I know a MILLION guys my age named Chris. I remember in one physics (I think) recitation, out of a class of 25 or 30, we had FIVE guys named Chris. (Well, four named Chris and one Cris, but close enough.)

I think guys’ names might be harder because they get shortened more often. I don’t think of all the Daves I know as Davids, or the Robs and Bobbys as Roberts.

The girls’ names came much more easily, whether that’s because I had more girl friends growing up, or their names are more interesting, or what, I don’t know. I did pretty well except for that one pooper, Lindsay. *I* always had plenty of Lindsays in *my* classes, is all I’m saying.

I left out Amanda(3), Ashley(4), Nicole(8), and Heather(10). Now that I think about it, I do remember lots of Ashleys. People have often called me Nicole when they can’t come up with my oh-so-obscure name (55th most popular, thankyouverymuch), but I can count the number of Nicoles I’ve known on one hand.

How did *you* do?

Tags: math & puzzles

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 22nd, 2006 at 12:38 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.