Analyses of Baby Name Popularity Distribution in U.S. for the Last 131 Years

Wentian Li

doi:10.1002/cplx.21409

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arXiv · 1205.1078

Analyses of Baby Name Popularity Distribution in U.S. for the Last 131 Years

Wentian Li

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Abstract

We examine the complete dataset of baby name popularity collected by U.S. Social Security Administration for the last 131 years (1880-2010). The ranked baby name popularity can be fitted empirically by a piecewise function consisting of Beta function for the high-ranking names and power-law function for low-ranking names, but not power-law (Zipf's law) or Beta function by itself.

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Wentian Li. 2012-05-04. Analyses of Baby Name Popularity Distribution in U.S. for the Last 131 Years. https://doi.org/10.1002/cplx.21409

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