Enter in any name and see its rise/fall in popularity over the next 25 years.

This is the coolest, simplest thing I’ve seen in a while. Enter in any name(s) that you want, and instantly see their past, current and predicted popularity, so you can judge the classical staying power… or faddish fadeout,,, that your child’s name will have.

In an era where people are divided between giving their children completely unique  names (usually just switching a consonant or vowel from an existing name or combining two names), or going with classic and biblical names (like we really need more “Michael”s running around), or the trendy name of the generation (Justin, Jennifer… <yawn> ), this tool may sway your decision.

The tool was developed by Chris Franck, an assistant research professor in statistics at Virginia Tech. It uses data of other similar names with similar performances to predict the future track record of the name in question. Of course, this isn’t going to do much for you if you’re going down the unique name road, as there won’t be any data – but that’s why you’d go that way anyway, right?

 

Click on the image below to go to Time Magazines‘ article with the imbedded tool.

Baby name predictor toolPersonalBabyProducts.com