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HelpRe: Jack, Henry, or Oliver
in reply to a message by aussiechic04
Popularity lists don't predict what proportion of people will like a name.
They only tell you how many, out of a random sample of kids born in 20XX, will have the name.
Like - suppose the name Liam is actually hated, or at least not cared for, by a large majority of people. The tiny minority of people, about 1 in 100 new parents of boys, who LOVE LOVE LOVE Liam, all used it. And the people who dislike it and had sons, used all the other names - anything but Liam. I don't think that's true, but maybe imagining that it were, you can see what I mean, about how popularity doesn't tell you how well-liked or acceptable a name is generally.
I think you're right that we all have a sense of what "society values" though... because our own values/tastes are just society's values, filtered through our personality and limited point of view. So I think we have an intuition about what names should be widely likeable (or not-disliked), at least within the parts of society where people have a lot in common with ourselves.
I care more about avoiding names that I suspect are *dis*liked by a variety of different kinds of people, than I care about avoiding names that are commonly found or too generally liked. Because really, 1 in 100 kids born in a given year, is not even one per classroom, and that's about the rate for the top 2 or 3 names. Yet, I still do that thing, like you say you do - I'll lose some interest in a name because I see it high on the chart!
- mirfak
They only tell you how many, out of a random sample of kids born in 20XX, will have the name.
Like - suppose the name Liam is actually hated, or at least not cared for, by a large majority of people. The tiny minority of people, about 1 in 100 new parents of boys, who LOVE LOVE LOVE Liam, all used it. And the people who dislike it and had sons, used all the other names - anything but Liam. I don't think that's true, but maybe imagining that it were, you can see what I mean, about how popularity doesn't tell you how well-liked or acceptable a name is generally.
I think you're right that we all have a sense of what "society values" though... because our own values/tastes are just society's values, filtered through our personality and limited point of view. So I think we have an intuition about what names should be widely likeable (or not-disliked), at least within the parts of society where people have a lot in common with ourselves.
I care more about avoiding names that I suspect are *dis*liked by a variety of different kinds of people, than I care about avoiding names that are commonly found or too generally liked. Because really, 1 in 100 kids born in a given year, is not even one per classroom, and that's about the rate for the top 2 or 3 names. Yet, I still do that thing, like you say you do - I'll lose some interest in a name because I see it high on the chart!
- mirfak
This message was edited 4/28/2020, 1:08 AM
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Yeah I knew my wires had crossed somewhere so to speak! I knew I’d gone off track when I used such an extreme example. That will teach me (hopefully) - trying to be coherent when I was already mentally exhausted at the end of the day lol.
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