Most Popular Names

I heard a story on the radio as I was waking up this morning about the most popular last names per country.  In my still groggy state of mind I thought that I would Google the story to blog about.  Well, I can't find that particular story, although Wikipedia does have a page dedicated to the subject.  OK, so that's not too interesting.

But while searching, I ran across the most popular first names according to US Census data.  I don't know which Census, but it kinda looks like the page compares the data from at least two censa (?). 

Naturally, I looked up my own name - my name is in the lower-mid-400s.  What shocked me is that my mother's name is in the top 5.  I mean, I know it's a popular name, but when I think about it, I only really know 4 (my mother, an aunt, a sister I knew when I was a kid and one of my dad's cousins).  The really strange part is that my mother and my aunt have the same last name ('cause they married brothers) which is also the maiden name of my dad's cousin.  There's something about the combination of those two names...

Anyhoo, I looked up several other names:

• Infectious Laughter made it into the top 25.
• Jules and African Hag each made it into the top 100 (with their birth certificate names, not their nicknames).
• My sister Super Mom made it into the low 200s.
• I was quite surprised to find that Kimi Stewart's unique spelling of her name beat my name to make it into the low 400s.  (But ultimately her name is one the list a few times with various spellings.)
• Affie's name is only 6 names less popular than my own - in the mid-400s (although there is a more popular spelling found in the mid-100s).
  
• I was surprised to find out that The Doctor's (and Bookie's) name is significantly less popular than mine - the low 600s. 
  
• I was even more shocked to find out that a pretty stupid spelling of The Doctor's name is still more popular than Mehsha's name which is in the high 2400s.  (Me and each of my sisters have wanted to use Mehsha's name for a daughter - and Super Mom would have if the boy twin had been a girl.)
• The way Sporty Nice spells her name pushes it down to the high 3600s although the common spelling is found in the top 50.

Now on to the men's names:

• Poly's name made it into the top 100.  I guess that's not too surprising, especially since every language tries to claim its origin.  (And since our family has waged a successful campaign to single-handedly increase the popularity of his name.)
  
• I Dunno's name is not far off from the ranking of my name - low 400s.
• Both of my brothers-in-law have names in the top 50.

And that's about it.  (It's pretty easy to search for family names when most of them have the same name.)

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