Above, a screen shot from my search for Capitola, which was the given name of my husband's 1c1r on his maternal side. Including spelling variations, there are more than 19.6 million people named Capitola covered by the US Census.*
Here are some other names I searched and how many I found enumerated in the entire span of the US Census.
D'Alva - 10.4 million
Elfie - 34 million
Elroy - 32.6 million
Elveretta - 35.7 million
Floyda - 15.5 million
Lavatia - 25 million
Leander - 25.2 million
Ulysses - 490,000 (this was a surprise, given the popularity of the other names)
Compare these statistics with one of the most common given names in hubby's family tree: Jane, which appears 91 million times in the US Census over the years!
Have you tried this with some of the seemingly uncommon given names in your tree?
*Randy Seaver notes, in a reader comment, that I didn't specify an exact match when searching for these given names. He's absolutely correct. The numbers would be far, far lower if I searched only for "Elveretta" without any spelling variations. I included variations (like "Elvereta") for two reasons. First, enumerators didn't always spell names the way those being enumerated would spell them. Second, indexing isn't always accurate. So I cast a wide net with multiple variations, for fun.
Interesting! Those are unique names. I would have thought Ulysses would be more popular. I know I have several family members named after presidents. I thought folks would have named their sons after President Ulysses Grant.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun experiment. I actually tried this years ago myself for both given names and surnames. Love experimenting! I'm actually not surprised with Ulysses, Leander, Elfie, Elroy, or Floyda , as those were actually pretty common names. A little surprised with Elveretta and really surprised with Lavatia and D'Alva, which I haven't heard much. How fun! Thanks for sharing. :)
ReplyDeleteI've had a similar experience with English censuses - searching a name in my family I thought was unique, only to discover it wasn't! Those names above are pretty cool!!
ReplyDeleteThose are definitely unusual names. I've only ever come across Elroy, Leander and Ulysses.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting test. I can say I have no family members with any of those names. Now I have some pretty unusual Southern family names.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that you did not use the exact feature in your searches. For instance, Elveretta as an exact first name shows only 406 entries. Leander is a bit more common, but only 89,715 entries. My Randall has only 67,000 exasct matches but over 14 million broad matches.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct, I did this on purpose. Elvereta was a common and close variation of Elveretta, for instance. Of course enumerators didn't always spell the name the way the person being enumerated would spell it--and indexing isn't always accurate, either. There are 18,082 matches for Randal and 9,463 matches for Randell, I notice!
DeleteSounds like it was a fun experiment!
ReplyDelete