Keep your Madison's and Miley's.. Give me an Agnes or a Vera!

May 17, 2008 5:23 PM

NameVoyager lists popular baby names dating back to the 1800's. Where could I find something similar for foreign names? Specifically, I'm interested in finding names that were used before the 1970's (as opposed to current baby name lists that show what's popular now).
posted by ellighi to Society & Culture (5 answers total)

Is there any country in particular you're curious about? In the US, names are tracked by the Social Security Administration -- I imagine that most countries have similar agencies keeping track of those stats.
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:43 PM on May 17, 2008

My German is too rusty to figure out exactly where this data comes from, but I do know that baby names must be approved by the government, so presumably there is some official record-keeping done.

1970's top German babynames? Stefan und Nicole. 1890's? Karl und Anna.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:40 PM on May 17, 2008

Here are lists of the top ten Japanese boys' names and girls' names for each year from the 1910s until 2005. I can't tell where the information comes from (I don't see it provided, but my Japanese is rusty and I just skimmed the top part), and it doesn't give the reading for each name.
posted by shirobara at 7:01 PM on May 17, 2008

Wikipedia's got an amazing chart here, along with links to the various country authorities that keep track of such things.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 11:19 PM on May 17, 2008

The 10 most common names used in Norway for girls and boys for each year from 1880 to 2007. Also the 50 most popular names from 1870 to 1999.
posted by esilenna at 6:11 AM on May 18, 2008