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beingsubmitted OP t1_ixqekpt wrote

Data from data.gov 100% sample of social security application names 1910-2020*.

Made with Python (w/ plotly, PIL)

*There were no names with 'eigh' in 1910

EDIT: Forget Leighanne. Leighanne sucks. The first use of EIGH not at the end was way back in 1914, 6 boys names LEIGHTON born in, you guessed it, NY.

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godamen t1_ixqk2f6 wrote

Burleigh. Hahahaha. I honestly don't care what people name their kids, but this one is ... something? I just imagine the Dr. delivering like a 12 lb kid and exclaiming "Whoa, that's a burley baby!" And the parents just going "Yea, that's the one, that's what we will name it"

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Tikimanly t1_ixql68v wrote

It all started so innocentleigh, neighming kids after citeighs, but now... weigh have no way to esceighp it...

btw, what is goeighng on with Mississippeigh?

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deconstructicon t1_ixqruk5 wrote

I thought it was confusing that the bottom graph didn’t have a labeled y-axis so I was trying to make the color gradient apply since it has a common color.

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unenlightenedgoblin t1_ixqtwsb wrote

I assume anyone with a name like this is a Republican, or was at least raised by one

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beingsubmitted OP t1_ixqu6xz wrote

Yeah, I added the part at the bottom at the end, but scrapped the y-axis because it was too crowded and jumped around too much, and I figured people cared more about the relative change than the actual value.

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beingsubmitted OP t1_ixqwz7b wrote

I disagree... On one hand, it is associated with the south, but on the other hand, I wouldn't expect name uniqueness to correlate with "reverence for tradition".

Conservatism is associated with a distaste for change and abhors anything "newfangled". I don't see how that goes hand in hand with inventing new names.

Being poor or lower class, on the other hand, likely correlates with a desire for uniqueness or any form of status, so I would entertain that hypothesis, and I imagine that's who you're picturing.

But the percentage of Republicans hasn't changed and so wouldn't explain the growth in popularity, which suggests any correlation would be indirect. I expect the growth in popularity is due to the internet and contrary to rural people. In my parents life, there were historical figures, some people on TV, and the people who lived in your town. No one else really existed. We meet and interact in social circles many orders of magnitude larger, which I think both increases the amount that we value uniqueness, and raises our threshold for what qualifies. The bigger your "world", the more unique a baby name you'll likely choose.

EDIT: not complaining, but the downvotes surprise me. I'm not sure if they're from members of the political left who don't like "eigh" or from members of the political right who feel I've taken a reductive stance on their beliefs. I just don't see a compelling hypothesis for linking republicans and "eigh" and I do find it compelling to believe more conservative people would tend to more conservative names. I don't see that the data are affected by the southern strategy, or anything other than southern states.

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beingsubmitted OP t1_ixrc5lw wrote

Again, I wouldn't see any reason to correlate it with education level or rural people. The map really only shows that it's a southern thing.

Sure the south could have more rural white without a college education, but it also has more fresh peaches and warmer weather. You can't connect all of those things.

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beingsubmitted OP t1_ixrceat wrote

Are more popular than what? Those names don't contain "eigh". What do you think we're talking about here?

More popular than their variants that do contain "eigh"? This is showing the popularity of names including "eigh" relative to all baby names by year. "All baby names" includes phonetically similar names that don't include "eigh".

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constantino675 t1_ixre2db wrote

how to take E, EE, or EY and turn it into EIGH.

ashley, not ashleigh. Kylee, not Kyleigh

Wonder how many hours that will waste over the course of their lifetime, both in writing it out, and correcting others who need it spelled out to record it correctly.

As someone else put it once, giving your child a modified name is setting them up for a lifetime of minor inconveniences.

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Pattyradcat t1_ixrl9rz wrote

What on earth are these parents thinking? The millennial names are dreadful

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bunnnythor t1_ixrlzmm wrote

“Paizleigh”?!? JFC…

That’s them, CPS officers, those parents right there.

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tbardsley81 t1_ixrrq8q wrote

I like how the prompts make it sound like it’s from Plague Inc… “Kyleigh first appears in IN & PA”. 😂

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edgeplot t1_ixryc4x wrote

Unfortunately this data is not beautiful. And the last slide of information appears so briefly that it cannot be read or paused upon in the mobile app.

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I_Stabbed_Jon_Snow t1_ixryn79 wrote

Makes sense, the highest concentration of these names winds up mostly in the lowest average education states.

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Valleycruiser t1_ixs32tx wrote

Here in Canada we use just the humble "Eh".

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ApartRuin5962 t1_ixs58a5 wrote

Choropleths where Mississippi and Alabama have the brightest colors are always measuring some sort of humanitarian crisis and this map is no exception

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blazeit420weed t1_ixs5m8w wrote

There needs to be a chart for Canada, eigh

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Ella3T t1_ixsbjy8 wrote

r/namenerds would probably be interested in this data.

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LordsMail t1_ixsczai wrote

How is "Leighann" the first use of it before the end of the name, when several years prior you've got "Creighton?"

Edit: not just several but over two decades earlier

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MostRadiant t1_ixsf83p wrote

Canada is getting more flagrant with their silent takeover.

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Ho3n3r t1_ixsh5av wrote

Tinsleigh. That's when you know people have started to take the piss.

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Forty-plus-two t1_ixsjoom wrote

When class is over

Ashley: Finally

Ashleigh: Finalleigh

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IslamDunk t1_ixsk1ll wrote

This has got to be the ugleighest letter combination to put in a name

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liamisabossss t1_ixsmfm5 wrote

Whenever there’s a heat map of the United States and Alabama and Mississippi are the brightest, it’s never something to be proud of

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LiquidDreamtime t1_ixsmojf wrote

Poor kid named Burleigh out there, somewhere, embarrass of his mom’s Essential Oil Facebook shares

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Tim080 t1_ixsmw2p wrote

Whenever I see this combination of letters, I can’t help but say it in my head the same way “Likely” is pronounced on the show “Letterkenny”

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PQbutterfat t1_ixsn63l wrote

Am I an old man for saying that all those names are stupid?

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PBlove t1_ixspmvr wrote

I like my Daughter's name.

She is only the 7th person recoreded in the US to have that first name with the last in 1890s.

When mybwofe introduces her everyone says "that's such a pretty name, where did you get it.?"

My daughter is the only girl I know of in the USA alive with that name, all because of a translation perversion 200 years ago. ;)

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YoshiFan501 t1_ixsw7ij wrote

You can add my cousin's daughter Ryleigh to this!

Born hours ago.

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Tikimanly t1_ixswt2x wrote

Theigh feighnal steightment reighds:

> Burleigh (1947), Lileigh (2008), Mileigh (2009), Peightyn (2010), Tynleigh (2011), Keileigh (2012), Blakeleigh (2012), Maleigh (2012), Tenleigh(2012), Khyleigh (2013), Atleigh (2014), Jleigh (2014), Braileigh (2015), Paizleigh (2015), Finnleigh (2015), Eveleigh (2016), Tinsleigh (2016), Jaeleigh (2018), Annaleigha (2020), Hazeleigh (2021), Renleigh (2021) Knoxleigh (2021), Rynleigh (2021)

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atre324 t1_ixswwnj wrote

So I really had my money on Utah and now I’m surprised

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eeladnohr t1_ixsyjvy wrote

Makes me happy ma decided Lee over Leigh 50 years ago. Jeighzus.

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mcivey t1_ixt0dt4 wrote

Am I dumb or does it say that “Leighanne” is the first name that uses “eigh” before the end of a name directly after it introduces “Creighton”? The “eigh” in “Creighton” is before it ends, right? Am I extremely dumb and misunderstanding what they are saying?

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unenlightenedgoblin t1_ixt2mmj wrote

Responding to your edit: your data literally shows that there’s nothing unique about these names anymore. I also never explicitly mentioned income—I think that’s less predictive than race, education, and place of residence.

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MFJazz t1_ixt4zqh wrote

Amazing! There were only 5 Burleigh’s in the Century, and one of them made the Hall of Fame! Incredibly unlikely!

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TheChoosyParents t1_ixt5r01 wrote

So the year is 1,911.5, and there are 15 occurrences. Oh wait, that's 15k.

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beingsubmitted OP t1_ixt6siv wrote

Just because it's less unique doesn't mean it's not done for uniqueness. "Paisley" is already a word, "Paizleigh" is a strategy to be unique. It's certainly not traditional or closed minded.

It's also still really unique. At its peak, "eigh" appears in 1.5% of new baby names in Mississippi.

Finally, it obviously doesn't matter if income is less predictive of "eigh" than race, education, or place of residence. The question is whether it's more predictive than political affiliation.

If you had explicitly said something about income, then my statement "I imagine that's who you're picturing" would have instead been "I understand that's who you're picturing".

By what means would you hypothesize a causal link from education level to use of "eigh" in a name?

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unenlightenedgoblin t1_ixt8a82 wrote

I can’t prove causality, I could prove correlation, but frankly it isn’t worth the effort to gather and interpret all the necessary data. If you’re interested, I’d encourage you to test the correlation that I suggest.

If I were to string together an anecdotal argument for causality, however, it would be a sense of threatened white identity. The linkages between this belief and Republican political affiliation are well-documented. To extend this to the significant trend and spatial distribution in names your data shows (1.5% is significant from a possible sample of 000s of names), I would contend that this is a form of ‘defensive’ cultural consolidation of rural whites who feel threatened by national shifts in ethnic composition, share of college-educated adults, and economic growth heavily favoring metropolitan areas.

It’s a way of saying ‘we’re different, we’re not like them’

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postmodest t1_ixtc6m5 wrote

Oh, by the way, Kayleigh was a hit for the band Marillion in 1985, which probably explains the 1985 results.

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sitcivismundi t1_ixth8gu wrote

Really expected Utah to be more yellow/gold as time went on. So many weird spellings of names involving “leigh” there

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PBlove t1_ixtkqlj wrote

Its a mistranslation from a French name that someone likely though sounded better. Based on Estelle. The rare spelling and associated pronunciation are both prettier.

But as you alluded to saying it literally let's anyone look her up. The fun of a unique first name.

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taaa6119 t1_ixtzox7 wrote

This is the content we came here for.

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beingsubmitted OP t1_ixu3b2b wrote

>1.5% is significant from a possible sample of 000s of names

A percentage is already "out of". It's already a ratio.

How would fearing a loss of identity lead to abandoning that identity and inventing a new one?

Fearing a loss of identity is not the same as trying to establish an identity. It's very much the opposite.

I see no compelling reason for the hypothesis you suggest.

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tomikeyta2 t1_ixukwcn wrote

This is a very interesting study. Didn't know that name 'Rayleigh' was not archaic.

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Svun t1_ixxggrj wrote

Thank you for making it per capita. Too many maps are just population maps.

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