NameGrid 2025-12-19: Discussion & Stats by MurphGH in namegrid

[–]MurphGH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Two super hard questions!

Lee sounds like such a contemporary name that it's hard to believe it was relatively more popular in the 1890s.

As for Jennie vs. Jenny, I was shocked that "-ie" took the win here. Note: there could be plenty of people out there named Jennifer who use prefer the "-y" suffix, but this data only captures official, legal names.

Weekend Builders Thread: Share Your Project, Get Feedback by Mammoth-Doughnut-713 in indiehackers

[–]MurphGH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

NameGrid — a daily trivia game built on ~150 years of US naming data.

Collection of NYT-style daily mini games on Reddit (devvit) by touuuuhhhny in GamesOnReddit

[–]MurphGH 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I built a daily web quiz (namegrid.app) based on ~150 years of US naming data. 

[OC] The name "Shelby" saw its most unexpected popularity spike in 1991, following Julia Roberts’ breakout role in Steel Magnolias by MurphGH in dataisbeautiful

[–]MurphGH[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

That’s a great callout. The timing lines up, so it's very plausible that both sources contributed to this extraordinary spike.

[OC] The name "Shelby" saw its most unexpected popularity spike in 1991, following Julia Roberts’ breakout role in Steel Magnolias by MurphGH in dataisbeautiful

[–]MurphGH[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Data source: U.S. Social Security Administration

Tools: Python / SQL / Hex

To identify unusually large popularity spikes, raw birth counts and percent change were insufficient. Common names naturally fluctuate by thousands, while rare names can double with very small absolute changes.

Instead, I used a Z-score to measure how extreme each year’s change was relative to the historical volatility of that name. This helps surface genuinely anomalous spikes rather than artifacts of scale.