ArticlesOh No! I’ve just discovered my name is becoming fashionable.
In 1942, the year that the first Famous Five book was released, Julian was the 250th most popular boys’ name in the USA, accounting for 0.0375% of male births. (That should be compared to the 5.49% of boys dubbed “James”.)
By 1962, it had fallen out of fashion, dropping to the 365th most popular boys’ name – it dropped to the 0.0227% of births.
Since then, it has slowly been growing in popularity. Last year, it climbed to position #74, claiming a staggering 0.268% of births.
While I am sure some of this can be attributed to the many grateful parents in the USA naming their children after me, I find it a bit threatening – I like that my first name is common enough to be spelled correctly, but rare enough that it is generally distinctive. Where I have worked or studied with other Julians, I have found the ongoing confusion rather tiresome. I feel sympathy for the over-popularly named. (Yes, I mean you Chris, Liz, Andy, Nic, Dave, Mel and James.)
Reference: US Social Security Data
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis on September 21, 2005
I certainly haven’t suffered such confusion. And believe it or not, it is commonly spelled correctly. Sometimes I’d trade it for a confusable name, though.
Comment by Julian on September 21, 2005
Aristotle,
My surname is more distinct and harder to spell – perhaps not in the same league as Pagaltzis, but getting there.
I used to be envious of a cubicle-mate who could leave a message with a secretary so easily: “Oh, John isn’t there? Could you tell him Jason Taylor rang. Thanks.” and then he would simply hang up. He didn’t need to waste time with “T for Tom. A for Adam.” etc.
I have touched on some of the other benefits and drawbacks of confusable names before.
Which reminds me of when I used to live on Neville Road. People would ask me to spell it, and I would start “Well, It’s N for Neville…” and then falter as I wondered what the point of this exercise was.
Comment by brainsnorkel on September 21, 2005
Having a popular name meant that I have been given plenty of distinguishing nicknames. Most of my more distinguishing nicknames are unsuitable for publication in a family blog like this one dedicated to the protection of elephants, and my thin veil of anonymity.
I remember a disambiguating nickname for on of the Michaels at my high school was “Doodle.” This nickname was explained to teachers for his propensity to doodle… his best friend was one of many Davids, whose nickname “Bumhole” was harder to explain. Hilarity of a scale not seen since Benny Hill ensued when they were caught playing up together.
Comment by Alastair on September 21, 2005
I would love to summarise the final chapter of Freakonomics for you, in which the authors study the correlation of first name uniqueness and economic success.
But I can’t, so you’ll just have to read it for yourself. Recommended.
I do however have two soundbites:
In one year, there were ~240 babies born in the US named Unique.
One caller to a radio show complained that their neice was named Shithead (pronounced shi-THEED). BTW My sister swears that she also knew of a baby Shithead. My urban-legend senses are tingling, but unfortunately Snopes doesn’t shed much light on this topic.
As for unique names, particularly in the US, I have you all beat.
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis on September 22, 2005
Julian: what a coincidence, I wrote about it too, 🙂 though I didn’t stop to predict as much as you did.
One constant my extraordinarily extravagant first name has created in my life is to make me feel a bit socially slow. See, whenever I introduce myself, more than 9 in 10 people instantly memorise my name. I, on the other hand, always need the requisite (and perfectly ordinary) 2-3 weeks to memorise all relevant names in a new social setting (like starting a job or school). Together, these facts mean that everyone is calling me by name long before I know to call them by theirs. It can be embarrassing.
Comment by Julian on January 7, 2006
I was just browsing some web stats for OddThinking.
It seems OddThinking is now getting at least some traffic from being ranked #4 in the Google Search for ‘baby shithead’.
Thank you Alastair!
Comment by Cassie on April 20, 2006
Julian, I feel your pain about having to spell your name. I think Cassie is pretty simple to spell, but others seem to offer all sorts of alternatives: Cassy, Casey, Casie, Cassey…
More annoying is the fact that over the phone, “s” sounds can be interpreted as “th” sounds. And when this substitution makes the name sound like another common name… oh the frustration. Cathy. How I despise that name.
So, I’ve taken to spelling my name over the phone: “Cassie with a double s, not a t-h”. I was surprised at this recent response to that:
“Oh, that’s an interesting name. I haven’t heard that one before!” and so on. I didn’t think Cassie was that rare. The associated package arrived a few days later addressed to Caffie.
I could always use Cassandra I guess, but I don’t feel like it’s me. I’ve been using Cassie as long as I can remember. (In fact, at my first day of kindergarten, each desk had a name written on it and we were all told to go find our name. I was a bit upset because I couldn’t find mine. Turned out, it was written as Cassandra, which I didn’t recognise, rather than Cassie.)
Comment by Cassie on April 20, 2006
By the way, Julian appears as Jullian in the White Pages directory.
Bring on phonetics I say.