There’s a new addition to the Namerology family, and it’s name-nerd nirvana
Namerology.com
is delighted to announce the birth of
the NameGrapher
born on March 8, 2022
weighing in at 12,679 names,
two different visualization modes,
and tons of awesome new tricks
It’s here! The Namerology NameGrapher is a visual, interactive gateway to US baby name history. With a slew of innovations large and small, I think you’ll find it addictive to explore.
Start by typing in the text field to the left of the graph. (The Grapher works on mobile, but a real keyboard improves the experience.) Then select options by clicking buttons like “Starts With,” “Ends With” and “Contains” to see the historical popularity of names that match your search text in different ways. And then check out the two different graphing modes: “Total” and “Compare.”
Total mode stacks up the usage of all names that fit the search. Compare mode overlays line graphs of individual names. The two views can lead to surprisingly different impressions of baby name trends.
For instance, take a look at the “Total” graph of the top 2000 US girls’ names from each time period, 1880-2020. It’s reminiscent of a block of sedimentary rock, or perhaps the pages of a much-read book.
Now check out the exact same search in “Compare” mode:
With this view it’s instantly apparent how far Mary once towered above all others—and that no name today is common enough even to qualify for a label.You can also use multiple search terms. Just separate text strings with commas to expand your results. For example, this chart shows all names starting with Jack or Jax to capture the extent of the recent trend.
I’ll leave you to uncover more aspects of the NameGrapher yourself. (And be sure to check out the companion interactive US Name Map too.) I’m excited to hear about your baby name discoveries!
Credits
The NameGrapher’s visualization guru was my brilliant collaborator-for-life Martin Wattenberg. Our daughter Eve Wattenberg added her own programming talents to the back-end data processing, making this app a true family affair.
17 Comments
You should all be so proud!
The most fascinating thing to me is how often the first letters are used during certain time period. For example names starting with letter A is more popular than ever before for girls while not many girls were given a name starting with letter E in the 60s.
This is an excellent update! I especially like how you incorporated all the best features from the Expert Voyager like multiple searches and middle and end letters. My only feature request would be a way to share links to created graphs.
Ooh, yes! Great idea.
“Deep linking” to search results is definitely on our radar! The app itself was designed with that in mind, but making it work withing the website framework has proved a challenge so far.
When the original names blog went down, I thought the internet had forever lost one of its most interesting and unique research tools. I can’t overstate how happy I am to have access to an even *better* NameVoyager!
Wholly agreed! I may have actually cried with happiness when I spotted this today…
Yes! I was bereft. This is wonderful!
I agree! I just found this while searching for the original BNW and I’m so happy!
This might make me reconsider having another kid. So glad to see this tool is up and running! Cheers!
If you’re able, I’d appreciate you putting back up/reworking the Baby Name Matchmaker from babynamewizard.com. I’m a writer and used it for every single story I wrote. It is much missed.
Yes! It was such a gift to writers.
Thank you for all your work, Laura and family!
Congratulations to you and yours! A virtual bundle of joy I would say.
Halle-freakin’-lujah! (Going to look up Halle now. 😆)
I’m so happy and excited to see this. I have been a fan of yours for so long, and I was so sad to think that we had lost such amazing resources. Thanks to you and your husband (and Eve!) for all your work!
THANK YOU!!!! And I second a new matchmaker as well.
Hooray! I just found your site by searching for what happened to Baby Name Wizard and saw the post that it was gone. Then I started looking through your blog and found this! I’m so happy to have a place to refer my international students to when they want to select an English name for use in the US.