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Help[Opinions] Re: American "classic" girl names revisited
in reply to a message by Array
LOL, I went and looked back at that thread because I remember coming up with this elaborate way to determine what is "classic" ... but my response was this lame little empty post. I must've fallen asleep while I was at it =P either that or I decided CKE's way really was better. Probably the latter.
My problem with the method was that Jane wasn't on the list! Neither is Diana (maybe it's not considered classic? Or it was too pagan seeming before the 20th c?). Or Linda. Or Virginia (how could this not be an American classic?!). But they're all close. Jane, I think, is only off because other forms of it have been fashionable - Jean, Joan, Janet etc.
(Basing all this on BtN's info only -- I am not scrounging through the 1880s & 1890s lists because I am too lazy.)
More under-500s
Alice
Leah
Patricia
Teresa
Angela seems to easily make the cut for CKE's classic definition, and Caroline too, and Georgia I think might count despite having fallen to 600s in the nineties... just because it's a state-name.
- mirfak
My problem with the method was that Jane wasn't on the list! Neither is Diana (maybe it's not considered classic? Or it was too pagan seeming before the 20th c?). Or Linda. Or Virginia (how could this not be an American classic?!). But they're all close. Jane, I think, is only off because other forms of it have been fashionable - Jean, Joan, Janet etc.
(Basing all this on BtN's info only -- I am not scrounging through the 1880s & 1890s lists because I am too lazy.)
More under-500s
Alice
Leah
Patricia
Teresa
Angela seems to easily make the cut for CKE's classic definition, and Caroline too, and Georgia I think might count despite having fallen to 600s in the nineties... just because it's a state-name.
- mirfak
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Angela didn't make my original list because of the 1880s -- its lowest ranking in the 126 years we have SSA data was in the very first year, 1880, when it was only #683. Caroline was a "near miss" by my original definition. Georgia's lowest ranking of #722 was in both 1986 and 1989.
Linda would have been a "near miss" by my original definition except for the very last three years of data, 2003-2005, when it falls below #400. I'm not sure if it really was as common as an original birth certificate form back in the late 19th century as the SSA figures seem to indicate. Remember that anyone born before the 1930s will have had his or her Social Security information entered into the system after they were already an adult, and so may have been using a different form than their parents originally gave them. I think a lot of the 1880s Lindas may have been Melinda or Belinda originally, just as in male names I think the SSA data has way too many men listed as just "Joe". I've never seen "Joe" as opposed to "Joseph" so popular in a list created from birth certificate data as it is in the SSA data.
How interesting you all remembered this! I was only proposing my criteria as one possible definition; there certainly could be others. There is no official board that rules on what is or is not a "classic" name! :)
Linda would have been a "near miss" by my original definition except for the very last three years of data, 2003-2005, when it falls below #400. I'm not sure if it really was as common as an original birth certificate form back in the late 19th century as the SSA figures seem to indicate. Remember that anyone born before the 1930s will have had his or her Social Security information entered into the system after they were already an adult, and so may have been using a different form than their parents originally gave them. I think a lot of the 1880s Lindas may have been Melinda or Belinda originally, just as in male names I think the SSA data has way too many men listed as just "Joe". I've never seen "Joe" as opposed to "Joseph" so popular in a list created from birth certificate data as it is in the SSA data.
How interesting you all remembered this! I was only proposing my criteria as one possible definition; there certainly could be others. There is no official board that rules on what is or is not a "classic" name! :)
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I remebered this because it's a good way to list classic names
Or at least, for the past 100 years. I really liked it. :-D
Or at least, for the past 100 years. I really liked it. :-D
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