SSA Analysis 2011

Yay! The list that all name-nerds have been waiting for! And this year I have access to a better version of Excel, so I can analyze the entire list now, instead of waiting for a combined-spelling list, like last year. Double yay!
(in all seriousness, though, the people at NameNerds are heroes! Just looking at the full list for an afternoon hurt my head.)


So, the patterns & numbers, starting with the girls:
68.6% of names ended in a vowel-sound, comprising 62% of girls born in 2011.
44.5% of names ended in 'a' or 'ah', comprising 38% of girls.
23.6% of names ended in the 'ee' sound, comprising 22.7% of girls.
7.5% of names ended in the 'lee' sound, comprising 9.6% of girls (up from 9% last year, but really, I thought this would've been much higher).
6.6% of names ended in the 'anna' or 'ana' sounds, comprising 5.8% of girls.
6% of names ended in the 'lyn' sound, comprising 5% of girls (up from 4.5% last year).
And despite the ridiculous variety of spelling variations for Madison & Addison, less than 1% of all girls names ended in the 'son' sound, comprising 2.2% of baby girls born in 2011.

For comparison's sake, the two trendy/popular names of "our" generation, Jennifer and Jessica, were used for 4.09% and 3.03% of baby girls, respectively, in their peak years, 1974 & 1988.

As for the boys:
33.6% of names ended in N, comprising 34% of boys born in 2011.
20.6% of names ended in a vowel-sound, comprising 16.5% of boys.
7% of names ended in R, comprising 8.2% of boys.
5.9% of names ended the 'ton' or 'don' sounds, comprising 9.2% of boys.
3% of names ended in 'son', comprising 4.55% of boys.
2.3% of names rhyme with Aidan, comprising 4.85% of boys (up from last year's 4.77%!).


In English, the letters J, K, Q, V, X, & Z are the rarest, starting 2.17% of English words, and occurring in 2.22%. However, in American names, they begin 21.3% of girls' names and 25% of boys' names, and occur in 35.8% of girls' names and 43.6% of boys'.
Y is the rarest vowel, occurring in 1.6% of English words, yet it occurs in 37% of girls' names, and 22% of boys' names.