Namesakes
At the start of my sophomore year of college, I was going along, minding my own business when I looked up and realized I had become a quadruplet. At least in name. Meaning I was suddenly sharing my first name with three other people. Luckily, the homies quickly developed nicknames for everyone to tell us apart, but I always thought it was weird that there was in influx of namesakes in one class.
Fast-forward six years. I'm in my third year of graduate school, minding my own business, when on the first day of class, as we're going around the table introducing ourselves, I realize that this time I'm one of three. So me and the other triplets get to talking and someone thinks to ask, "Were you born in such-and-such year?" We all were. As were the three young women with whom I shared a name in undergrad. Clearly the name was very popular in that year.
So the other day I decided to find out exactly how popular it had been. According to the Social Security Administration, the popularity of my first name peaked in the year I was born, coming in at #9 among names for female newborns (... last year it was #201). On the one hand, I feel like maybe I should begrudge my mother's lack of creativity. On the other hand, I suppose she could've been really creative, and named me some sh*t that would never ever appear on an SSA list of the most popular names. So all in all, I suppose I'm not mad.
Fast-forward six years. I'm in my third year of graduate school, minding my own business, when on the first day of class, as we're going around the table introducing ourselves, I realize that this time I'm one of three. So me and the other triplets get to talking and someone thinks to ask, "Were you born in such-and-such year?" We all were. As were the three young women with whom I shared a name in undergrad. Clearly the name was very popular in that year.
So the other day I decided to find out exactly how popular it had been. According to the Social Security Administration, the popularity of my first name peaked in the year I was born, coming in at #9 among names for female newborns (... last year it was #201). On the one hand, I feel like maybe I should begrudge my mother's lack of creativity. On the other hand, I suppose she could've been really creative, and named me some sh*t that would never ever appear on an SSA list of the most popular names. So all in all, I suppose I'm not mad.
posted by Puff at 1:45 PM
1 Comments:
What's very interesting, other than me showing any sort of life on this blog, is that I came to the blog looking for The Generalist's entry on the book Freakonomics and also to see if I wrote one. In the tail end of the book, they actually talk about the popularity of names over time and the implications they have had. Just an fyi.
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