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ArchivesRe: Sarah as a male name?
in reply to a message by Lethe
This was not just in the 1980s. If you check the year by year Social Security list, you will find Sarah on the top 1000 list for boys several times between 1881 and 1909, with its highest ranking being #654 in 1899. Then it's on the top 1000 again between 1978 and 1989, with the highest rank within that period being #789 in 1984.
But these are highly unlikely to be real male Sarahs. The people who enter records into the Social Security system are fallible human beings like the rest of us. They sometimes make mistakes in typing in the sex or gender code on an application. Most extremely popular female names will also show up on the male lists before 1990 because of these errors. Jennifer is on the top 1000 boys' list between 1967 and 1989. Jessica is on the top 1000 boys' list between 1977 and 1991. Lisa is on the top 1000 boys' list between 1960 and 1975. Note that these periods are precisely when those names were overwhelmingly popular for girls. So it's just that there were so many girls being given these names that the % who had their sex code wrongly entered were enough to get the name onto the boys' list.
After around 1991, partly perhaps because accuracy increased, and partly because the % of total births accounted for by the top names went down so that even the same % of errors wouldn't result in enough numbers to make the top 1000, you get many fewer examples of this. But it is really unlikely that a lot of parents in the 1980s were naming sons Sarah. The "boys" named Sarah on those lists are almost surely girls whose sex code was wrongly entered.
But these are highly unlikely to be real male Sarahs. The people who enter records into the Social Security system are fallible human beings like the rest of us. They sometimes make mistakes in typing in the sex or gender code on an application. Most extremely popular female names will also show up on the male lists before 1990 because of these errors. Jennifer is on the top 1000 boys' list between 1967 and 1989. Jessica is on the top 1000 boys' list between 1977 and 1991. Lisa is on the top 1000 boys' list between 1960 and 1975. Note that these periods are precisely when those names were overwhelmingly popular for girls. So it's just that there were so many girls being given these names that the % who had their sex code wrongly entered were enough to get the name onto the boys' list.
After around 1991, partly perhaps because accuracy increased, and partly because the % of total births accounted for by the top names went down so that even the same % of errors wouldn't result in enough numbers to make the top 1000, you get many fewer examples of this. But it is really unlikely that a lot of parents in the 1980s were naming sons Sarah. The "boys" named Sarah on those lists are almost surely girls whose sex code was wrongly entered.
This message was edited 9/21/2008, 8:28 PM
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Replies
While it's most likely true that most/all?? of the male Sarah's are errors, I wonder if people will look back 100 years from now and question whether all the female Riley's and so on were also mistakes. In other words, I wonder if there are/have been some historical name trends that we don't really know about and dismiss because the records weren't so well kept. It's probably not the case, but maybe it's not always correct to dismiss out of hand either some of the data.
Chels'
Chels'
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Ahh, yes -- very true. Still interesting. CKE, maybe you would like to update the article? The site is like wikipedia so it's easy to update... If nothing else, I've posted your explanation on the talk page:
http://wiki.name.com/en/Talk:Names_and_Gender
http://wiki.name.com/en/Talk:Names_and_Gender
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thanks, I'm quite glad to know that! and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been confused, lol.
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A related note, you might be interested in this article:
http://wiki.name.com/en/Names_and_Gender
http://wiki.name.com/en/Names_and_Gender
This message was edited 9/22/2008, 12:06 PM
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Haha. I don't trust that article at all.
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