More SSA List Facts

I've been further working on breaking down the baby-name trends of 2010 (the first part is here), and here's what I've got:

Boys' names have much more variety of sounds:

• When comparing starting letters & ending letters, girls' names are significantly* more likely to start with 'A', 'K', or 'L' or end with 'A' or 'Y' than boys' names.
• Boys are significantly more likely than girls to have names starting with 'B', 'D', 'F', 'J', 'O', 'Q', 'R', 'T', 'U', 'W', 'X' or 'Z'; or ending in 'B', 'C', 'N', 'O', 'R', 'S', 'T', or 'X'.
• For all other instances, the numbers are about even.

Boys are actually more likely to have a name ending in 'el'. 37 out of the boys' top 1000 end in 'el', while only 25 of girls' names end in 'el' or 'elle'.

Boys' names and girls' names are generally about the same length--6 letters. Boys' are slightly more likely to be shorter (5.8 ± 1.3); girls' slightly more likely to be longer (6.0 ± 1.3).

Although 'E' is the most common vowel in English, 'A' is the most common vowel in American names. 'U' is the least common vowel in American names, but 'Y' is the least common vowel in English.
Girls' names are nearly twice as likely to contain a 'Y', while boys' names are nearly twice as likely to contain an 'O' or a 'U'.

Only one name ending in 'U' appears in the top 1000--Beau.



*"significantly" is of course, subjective, but for this analysis, it means "at least 40%, in general". Very scientific.