Where do you rank?

Baby names will be a big topic around our house in the next couple of months and now the Social Security Administration, with the release of the most popular baby names for 2010, has given us a new round of data to consider as we mull over name ideas. http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/pr/baby-names2010-pr.html Yup, I was that parent who compared every name idea Chris and I came up with to the top baby name list to make sure our choices weren't too "popular."

For someone who didn't want a super popular name for my child, (although I may not have succeeded - time will tell) picking a top 10 name doesn't mean anymore that there'll be five other kids with that name in your child's kindergarten class. According to the Social Security Administration, "Three decades ago, a third of all babies had names that were in the top 20. Last year, only 14 percent of babies had names from the top 20." But that also means that a name like Oliver, in 88th place nationally in 2010, might not be much more "unique" than Ryan in 23rd place or Aaron in 55th place.

It was fun to look at the website, which can sort names by year and by state, and show trends over the decades, and see where Oliver, Chris and I ranked. Oliver was the 305th most popular boys name in 2000, but made a steady rise to 98th in 2009 (42nd most popular in Minnesota) and then rose to 88th place in 2010. Meanwhile, his dad, Christopher, had the third most popular name in his birth year of 1982, but dropped to 10th by 2009 (and only 63rd in Minnesota). It probably doesn't surprise you that Kirsten didn't make the top 100 in her birth year of 1979, (293 to be exact) but the name has taken a steadier decline since 2000 from 255th place to 845th place in 2009.

So, where does your name rank?

Sociologists have apparently been having as much fun analyzing names as I have. As the percentage of children with the top names drops, it shows our generation is experiencing more freedom from naming traditions, such as naming a child after a grandparent, or giving a name from one's culture, and in turn, are opting for names that are "unique" or that truly suit our tastes. But the diversification of names heightens what each name says about parents' tastes, values or dreams for a child.

The author of the book The Baby Name Wizard, Laura Wattenberg explained,

The more diverse naming styles become, the more we are going to read into somebody's name," Wattenberg said. She analyzed baby name statistics from the U.S. Social Security Administration to calculate a measure called "Shannon entropy" from the field of information theory. This measure is used to describe the information contained in a message — in this case, how much is communicated by the choice of a name. http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40452893/ns/today-parenting/t/baby-names-reveal-more-about-parents-ever/

Her example of an office dress codes explains her point. What would you surmise about the personality, values and tastes of a young man who wears a blue suit in a law firm where everyone wears dark suits compared to the man who wears the same blue suit to work at a software company with no dress code whatsoever? Even traditional names that have staying power, like John or Elizabeth, carry more weight now than they did 50 years ago. Two generations ago, we wouldn't have thought about a name saying something about the parents, but now they do.

So I don't know what that says about Chris or me that we chose the name Oliver, or even what the names Kirsten and Christopher say about our own parents, but the theory is interesting. Whatever sociologists (or our family and friends) think about our name pick for Baby 2.0, it'll have been a compromise been "unique" and "not too popular" (me) and "normal" and "just something I like" (Chris).