
The rise in popularity of boys' names that end in ‘n’ - sp332
http://io9.com/america-why-are-you-all-naming-all-your-boys-like-this-1561328070
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CurtHagenlocher
Of the seven boys I know under the age of 3, six have names ending in N:
Mason, Lawson, Hudson, Colin, Callen and Quinn. And while the last one doesn't
quote match the pattern as the others, that's a pretty stunning percentage.

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pcurve
That is fascinating. Please don't take this the wrong way because I'm
genuinely curious, but are they all white kids? I'm curious to see if this is
a way for some white parents to give their children distinctively white names.

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poulsbohemian
I named my son Quinn - it's a celtic name, even though neither my wife or
myself can claim any such ancestry. And no, we didn't really give whether a
name sounded like a particular ethnicity even the slightest thought when we
named any of our kids.

We generated large lists of names and would read them off to each other. Both
of us just liked the sound of Quinn - felt modern yet traditional, masculine,
and so we though, unique. Unfortunately it has become the "Sean / Shawn" of
this generation - gender neutral and all too common. I feel a bit like Johnny
Cash and the "Boy Named Sue" where I hope he doesn't hate me as he gets older.
Honestly though, in our small town there's only one other Quinn (a little girl
about his same age) and everybody in town knows him because of his unique name
and even more special personality. So, guess it's alright in the end.

~~~
pcurve
I see. I certainly wouldn't think most parents would make conscious decision
to pick more 'white' sounding name. I'm more curious about the catalyst that
makes certain names take-off in popularity, and hence making them sound more
attractive to parents. In your case, I wonder what caused you and your wife to
feel that Quinn sounded 'modern yet traditional'.

Quinn as boy's name is uncommon, but its popularity got a nice boost in 1985
and has been on a nice uptrend.

www.babycenter.com/baby-names-quinn-462915.htm

Quinn as girl's name is a different story.

www.babycenter.com/baby-names-quinn-6865.htm

It surged in popularity some time in 2009.

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mildtrepidation
This strikes me as the same sort of statistical non-information that people
strive to come up with during sports games (at least in the US). "Mr. X is the
first person in 17 years to bat Y% during years modulo Z while facing right-
handed pitchers with only four fingers on their left hands!"

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Houshalter
Why is that? It's not just some sampling error, it's the entire social
security database, and there is a definite trend over time.

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maged
Note this graph measures the % of total names, not the % of total boys with
names ending with 'n' (which would be much more meaningful).

~~~
Houshalter
It says "distribution of last letter in newborn boys' names".

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DanBlake
If you want insanity, try to name _any_ female russian first name that does
not end with a 'uh' or 'ah' sound.

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pcurve
Lubov.

 _does sanity dance_

~~~
DanBlake
"sonseh" is another one

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jds375
Certainly seems to checkout. It's an interesting trend, kind of similar to how
the majority of girls' name ends in a vowel (including 'y').

Relevant Data:
[http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/top5names.html](http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/top5names.html)

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MartinCron
Father of an Ethan here. Before we named him (12 years ago) it was a
relatively uncommon name, and then suddenly it was the #1 boys name. Kind of
creepy, to be plugged into the cultural pulse and not be aware of it.

One thing that drew me to the name was that there was no obvious "cute"
nickname form of it. Unlike my other favorite name, Lawrence, which gets
turned into the distasteful (to me) Larry.

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nevster
Mission Impossible?

~~~
MartinCron
That's my best guess. That and/or moms with their secret crushes on Ethan
Hawke.

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sp332
Hello new mods, just wondering why this story is only 2 hours old, has 43
votes but has already fallen to the third page, whereas
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7560756](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7560756)
has the same number of votes, is 11 hours old, and is ranked slightly higher?
Thanks.

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ThomPete
My two sons are named Carlo Gibson Septimius and Leo Balthazar Septimius. So
is that one out of four?

Besides that the boys we know on their age is a Marius, Leon, Loui, Anthon,
Emil, Emil, Ethan, Austin.

All the boys that end with n have english speaking parents (besides my oldest
who is Gibson as a middle name)

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poulsbohemian
If this is true, I applaud you - those are fantastic names.

Emil was somewhere on our list as well.

~~~
ThomPete
It's true :) What you see is a struggle between my wife and me.

I wanted Gibson and Balthazar to be first names, my wife wanted Carlo and Leo.
She won first round I will win the next one :)

Emil is my nephew and a great name.

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csense
Is the graph measuring the number of distinct names that end with 'n', or the
number of recently born boys who have names that begin with 'n'?

If it's the former, then unpopular names with many distinct spellings may be
vastly overrepresented in the graph.

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bloaf
Wolfram Alpha has name data, although I couldn't get it to return this sort of
statistic.

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10+most+popular+boys+na...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=10+most+popular+boys+names)

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Steko
[http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/limits.html](http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/limits.html)

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callmeed
It's funny I was just joking on twitter that, as a rule, every t-ball team in
my son's league has to have a Jaden and an Aiden on it.

My son's name also ends in n (Boston) but I've yet to encounter it amongst
other kids

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cafard
Well, there's a Kishan on my block and a Nathan around the corner, both under
three. But John and its variants--Ian, Ivan--have never really gone away, have
they?

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allochthon
I would like to see socioeconomic status factored into the name trends.

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escaped_hn
Maybe n is a popular letter to end nouns with the same way g is a popular way
to end verbs with? (ing)

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sliverstorm
My half-baked theory is names ending with "n" are generally all clearly
masculine. Many names are being gradually feminized, or at least androgenized,
such as Taylor and Kacey. I bet many parents naming boys would try to avoid
ambiguous or potentially ambiguous names.

All of the boy names that pop into my head right now that end with "n" are
pretty unassailably male.

John. Shawn. Allen. Ben. Brandon. Trenton. Colin. Ethan. Jason.

Of course, the day is coming that some little girl is named Johnathan.

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twelvechairs
Counter to your point, Vivian used to be a common mans name but underwent a
feminisation so that now it's almost exclusively used by women

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ahomescu1
To me, Leslie seems another good example.

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sp332
Beverly was the one that shocked me. It's partly since I grew up with an Aunt
Beverly, and partly because I'm used to names ending in -ly being feminine.

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mhurron
Hurray I'm popular.

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mildtrepidation
No, but your name might be. ;)

