The median living girl named Matilda was born around 1966 and ranges in age from 8 to 73 years old, according to Randy Olson’s name-age calculator. (Photo by EvelynGiggles via Flickr)
In the United States, your name apparently says a lot about you, and data scientists are digging into the details. They’ve come up with ways to mine information and statistics to determine what your moniker says about your age, where you live, your profession and even what your politics are.
The Washington Post‘s Wonkblog gathered these intriguing tools in one place and I thought I’d share some of them here, including a fun, interactive name-age calculator.
Designed by Randy Olson, the calculator uses data from the U.S. Social Security Administration to achieve its results, as shown in the examples below.
To look up your own name or other names, you can check out Olson’s name-age calculator.
Your first name is a predictor of what your future political leanings might be, according to Verdant Labs, which used data from the the U.S. Social Security Administration and Federal Election Commission to come up with this chart.
If your name is Dylan, you are far more likely to be a Democrat, if you are a Duane, you probably belong to the Grand Old Party (GOP).
Courtesy Verdant Labs
When it comes to American last names, National Geographic has put together this typographical map showing the most common surnames by state, according to the number of people with that name.
Longtime perennials like Williams, Anderson and Jones still dominate the map, but we’re also seeing names like Rodriguez, Garcia and Patal.
Courtesy National Geographic
So what’s in a name? Thanks to data scientists, quite a lot apparently.
This is an incredible article and great tool!
Thank you!
I hereby take this opportunity to let you know that am pleased by such information about any name though in doubt about those that are quite different from other regions eg Africa etc. Thanks