Months, Seasons, and Names

[maniakes]

The other day, I posted some vague musings on G+ on the haphazard appropriation of month and season names as personal names. In the names of Science!, I've decided to do some actual data analysis rather than just going off of anecdotal impressions and recollections. I'm looking at the Census names files (a compilation of the frequency of each

Comments

[maniakes]

Caveats:
- "0" values are approximate, since unique or extremely rare names either wouldn't show up in the sample or would get elided in the Census Bureau's analysis process as being below the reporting threshold.

- The names file was a secondary collection of information from the PES, and its sample is skewed somewhat by the primary purpose of the PES: the PES was primarily intended to estimate the number of people missed by the full official census tally, and it deliberately over-sampled minority communities (especially blacks and hispanics) because those were the communities they were most concerned about being undercounted. Thus, the ethnic/cultural demographics of the raw PES sample aren't quite representative of the overall US population, and there was no attempt to correct the names files for the demographic skew.

- The data was collected in 1990, making it nearly 22 years out of date. Sadly, this is the most recent data set available.

[mor_riogain]

That's actually pretty damned cool!

[squid314]

Very interesting indeed. I also feel I should add that a friend of a friend named her daughter Wednesday.

[maniakes]

The lack of Wednesdays in the sample surprised me a bit. I would have expected at least a few, due to people naming daughters after Wednesday Friday Addams.

[maniakes]

Although now that I think to check, Pugsley, Morticia, Fester, Lurch, and even Gomez seem to all be absent from the sample.