I analyzed every SSA baby name since 1880. Here are the names that got destroyed by pop culture.
I've been going through the full SSA dataset (every baby name registered in the US since 1880) and some of the pop culture effects are insane:
- Karen peaked at #3 in 1965. It's now #831 and still falling.
- Alexa was steadily climbing until 2015 when Amazon launched the Echo. It's dropped every year since.
- Isis was in the top 500 as recently as 2005. Completely gone by 2015.
- Katrina dropped 70% in one year after Hurricane Katrina.
- Khaleesi appeared in 2011 (Game of Thrones S1), peaked in 2018 with 560 babies, then dropped 68% after the finale.
The craziest one I found: Deneen. 22 babies in 1963. Then 1,604 in 1964 — a single-year 70x spike. Then back to 421 the next year. Still trying to figure out what caused it.
I built a tool to explore the full dataset if anyone wants to look up names: https://babynames.market/explore
What's the most dramatic name rise/fall you know of?
u/iezzizzei — 1 day ago