Millennials Gotta Be Different -- Popular Girl and Boy Names

Are you a Millennial? Your parents tried to show some creativity in picking your name. The Baby Boomers had a limited group of names, making things seem bland. All of my classmates seemed to be John, Michael, Linda, or Kathy. Thing have changed. Nowadays... everybody wants their child to have a unique name!

The data below comes from the Social Security Administration and only applies to USA. The most common names are listed (top 21)-- along with the number of children receiving that name throughout the 2010s decade. Here it is:

2010s Girl Names

Girl # with name 1 Sophia 121,787 2 Emma 119,168 3 Isabella 111,984 4 Olivia 109,329 5 Ava 93,595 6 Emily 79,590 7 Abigail 76,894 8 Mia 75,583 9 Madison 67,825 10 Elizabeth 58,628 11 Chloe 57,522 12 Ella 53,439 13 Avery 50,336 14 Charlotte 49,957 15 Sofia 49,844 16 Addison 49,157 17 Natalie 46,303 18 Amelia 45,643 19 Grace 45,213 20 Evelyn 45,112 21 Lily 44,450 Boy # with name 1 Jacob 112,227 2 Noah 107,552 3 Mason 104,642 4 William 100,397 5 Ethan 99,209 6 Liam 95,953 7 Michael 95,382 8 Alexander 92,346 9 Jayden 89,352 10 Daniel 86,874 11 Aiden 86,204 12 James 83,105 13 Elijah 82,667 14 Matthew 81,038 15 Benjamin 79,108 16 Logan 78,253 17 Anthony 77,234 18 David 76,075 19 Joseph 74,916 20 Joshua 74,143 21 Jackson 73,601

The Fifties-- Top 21 most common names

Are you a baby boomer? The good old Fifties... a time when everybody wanted to be normal. The beatniks had not really taken hold. People were thrilled to have survived World War II. They chose names from a limited spectrum of choices. This data comes from the Social Security Administration. The most common names are listed (top 21)-- along with the number of children receiving that name throughout the 1950s decade. Here it is:

Boys:

	Boy Name
1	James	843,377
2	Michael	837,084
3	Robert	830,032
4	John	797,528
5	David	769,555
6	William	590,973
7	Richard	535,149
8	Thomas	454,169
9	Mark	382,419
10	Charles	360,979
11	Steven	333,513
12	Gary	329,751
13	Joseph	299,854
14	Donald	273,413
15	Ronald	271,011
16	Kenneth	262,683
17	Paul	253,081
18	Larry	245,535
19	Daniel	243,591
20	Stephen	207,171
21	Dennis	204,131

Girls:

	Girl Name
1	Mary	625,532
2	Linda	564,261
3	Patricia	459,587
4	Susan	437,688
5	Deborah	430,493
6	Barbara	345,686
7	Debra	341,282
8	Karen	332,483
9	Nancy	286,757
10	Donna	270,310
11	Cynthia	263,388
12	Sandra	251,533
13	Pamela	237,367
14	Sharon	232,782
15	Kathleen	224,300
16	Carol	222,620
17	Diane	210,605
18	Brenda	209,226
19	Cheryl	171,355
20	Janet	167,500
21	Elizabeth	165,641

Nowadays, for the Millennial generation it's different. Everybody wants their child to have a unique name! My next post will show the most common names from the 2000s decade.

Understanding Trump-- A Struggle for Images

An election is a period of programmed violence, because it is a quest for new images of national identity. The present election is a “tragic” one, because the American sense of identity has been in jeopardy from new technology for some time. Every new technology creates a new sensory environment that rearranges the images we make of ourselves. To discover and to elect representatives in a period of deep personal uncertainty is to be involved in a struggle for images, not a struggle for goals.      

Anyone who looks as if he wants to be elected had best stay off TV. TV demands sophistication—that is, multi-level perception. It is a depth medium, an X-ray form that penetrates the viewer.

TV, of course, has transformed the primaries from regional popularity contests into national image-making shows. Radio and jet travel, like press coverage, still count on the candidate’s having a special slogan, a special issue, that identifies him. TV has ended that. The press can only tag along to comment on what happened on TV.

But, in a deep sense, TV bypasses the ballot box as a means of creating political “representatives.” TV is not concerned with views or interests or issues. It is a maker and finder of images that ride over all points of view and over all age-groups as well. The TV image ends all national and party politics.

Why should TV demand sophistication and insouciance? Simply because it is a depth medium for which earnestness is fatal. Depth requires perception on many levels and, therefore, an absence of single purpose or direction. An all-at-once world, fashioned by electric information, demands a candidate full of puns and unexpected nuances. Such a man is one who knows so much about the contemporary interface of all cultures that he cannot possibly be deluded into any earnest regard for any one of them. The new changes are not moral but technological. 

(Marshall McLuhan, 1968)