Looking at some name data

The New York City Health Department has released its list of most popular names for girls and boys in 2010. They break it down by ethnicity. The official categories here are Hispanic, Black, White, and Asian & Pacific Islander. My first thought was that the list doesn't look much like what I think of as "Hispanic" names: the only clearly Hispanic boys' name, Angel, is after Jayden and Justin and above Jacob and Christopher. Then I got to White.

For girls:

• Esther

Olivia
Leah
Sophia
Emma
Rachel
Isabella
Sarah
Chana
Ava/Chaya

And for boys:

Joseph
David
Jacob
Michael
Daniel
Moshe
Benjamin
Matthew
Alexander
Jack/Samuel

The New York Times story that linked me to this talked about the frequency of Blblical names, and boys' names starting in J, but that list doesn't just look "Biblical" to me, it looks Jewish. Esther, Leah, Rachel, Sarah, Chana, Chaya, not any form of Mary (nor is Maria on the list of names given to Hispanic girls). Either a very large fraction of the white children being born in this city right now are Jewish, or nobody's going to be able to tell a Jewish name from a non-Jewish one ten years from now. Some of both, I suspect: Leah and Hannah have been pretty high in the national lists of girls' names in the last few years. Not Ann(e) or Anna, Hannah. (I was going to offer my grandparents' names to a friend who was looking for suggestions of what to name a baby, a few years ago, but my friend's "nothing in the top ten" request ruled out my grandmother's name; she was Mia, short for Amelia.)

At my job, we are sometimes asked to write practice questions in the form "$name is doing an experiment/has discovered" rather than talking about "a student" or "a scientist" or "a team." We try to come up with a mix of plausible names, of various ethnicities. What does "Hispanic name" mean when the list of names for Hispanic girls starts "Isabella, Mia, Emily, Sophia, Ashley"? (I tend to use are statewide data, for the year and state in question: the Social Security Administration is happy to give out, say, top ten names for girls born in West Virginia in 2002, or boys in Mississippi in 1993, or anything back about a century, though they note that the data are spotty pre-1937, which isn't a problem for our purposes. Having the list rather than pulling things out of the air at least means it's less likely to read like "these are old people" to the kids using the book, which it might if I started thinking of my friends.)

I don't know what, if anything, this means,

Looking at some name data

The New York City Health Department has released its list of most popular names for girls and boys in 2010. They break it down by ethnicity. The official categories here are Hispanic, Black, White, and Asian & Pacific Islander. My first thought was that the list doesn't look much like what I think of as "Hispanic" names: the only clearly Hispanic boys' name, Angel, is after Jayden and Justin and above Jacob and Christopher. Then I got to White.

For girls:

• Esther

Olivia
Leah
Sophia
Emma
Rachel
Isabella
Sarah
Chana
Ava/Chaya

And for boys:

Joseph
David
Jacob
Michael
Daniel
Moshe
Benjamin
Matthew
Alexander
Jack/Samuel

The New York Times story that linked me to this talked about the frequency of Blblical names, and boys' names starting in J, but that list doesn't just look "Biblical" to me, it looks Jewish. Esther, Leah, Rachel, Sarah, Chana, Chaya, not any form of Mary (nor is Maria on the list of names given to Hispanic girls). Either a very large fraction of the white children being born in this city right now are Jewish, or nobody's going to be able to tell a Jewish name from a non-Jewish one ten years from now. Some of both, I suspect: Leah and Hannah have been pretty high in the national lists of girls' names in the last few years. Not Ann(e) or Anna, Hannah. (I was going to offer my grandparents' names to a friend who was looking for suggestions of what to name a baby, a few years ago, but my friend's "nothing in the top ten" request ruled out my grandmother's name; she was Mia, short for Amelia.)

At my job, we are sometimes asked to write practice questions in the form "$name is doing an experiment/has discovered" rather than talking about "a student" or "a scientist" or "a team." We try to come up with a mix of plausible names, of various ethnicities. What does "Hispanic name" mean when the list of names for Hispanic girls starts "Isabella, Mia, Emily, Sophia, Ashley"? (I tend to use are statewide data, for the year and state in question: the Social Security Administration is happy to give out, say, top ten names for girls born in West Virginia in 2002, or boys in Mississippi in 1993, or anything back about a century, though they note that the data are spotty pre-1937, which isn't a problem for our purposes. Having the list rather than pulling things out of the air at least means it's less likely to read like "these are old people" to the kids using the book, which it might if I started thinking of my friends.)

I don't know what, if anything, this means,

Staying home sick

I stayed home from work with an annoying cold Thursday (and went through about a box and a half of tissues). Yesterday I was feeling better through about mid-afternoon, and then the sneezing, runny nose, and eye watering started again.

I had been planning to go to tnh and pnh's today, for general hanging out and a chance to get out of my shell a bit. However, I may still be contagious, and they're planning to be singing at GAFilk next weekend, so even if I was up to enjoying the party (after the subway trip), it would be unkind to inflict myself on them. Or, for that matter, on anyone else who might be likely to catch cold.

I'm not making resolutions—they just make me grumpy—but Patrick's invitation reminded me that I really do want to see more people in person than I have been. Last weekend's Newtonmass party in Cambridge was good in that direction, but I want to catch up with people here in New York, and more people I already know (that party included a few people I knew somewhat, one or two I'd played boardgames with before, and a bunch I'd never met, though one of the latter apologized for not remembering my name from a context I knew nothing about).

Staying home sick

I stayed home from work with an annoying cold Thursday (and went through about a box and a half of tissues). Yesterday I was feeling better through about mid-afternoon, and then the sneezing, runny nose, and eye watering started again.

I had been planning to go to tnh and pnh's today, for general hanging out and a chance to get out of my shell a bit. However, I may still be contagious, and they're planning to be singing at GAFilk next weekend, so even if I was up to enjoying the party (after the subway trip), it would be unkind to inflict myself on them. Or, for that matter, on anyone else who might be likely to catch cold.

I'm not making resolutions—they just make me grumpy—but Patrick's invitation reminded me that I really do want to see more people in person than I have been. Last weekend's Newtonmass party in Cambridge was good in that direction, but I want to catch up with people here in New York, and more people I already know (that party included a few people I knew somewhat, one or two I'd played boardgames with before, and a bunch I'd never met, though one of the latter apologized for not remembering my name from a context I knew nothing about).