- One Reddit user compiled data from the US Census to track men's names over time
- Many names popular in the 20th century lost popularity by 2000 or shortly after
- Read more: “Lily” is out of the lead! Revealing the most popular names of 2023
Have you recently met a child named “Clifford”? What about “Claude”?
If the answer is no, there's a good reason for that — and data to back it up.
New research has combed through 121 years of US Social Security Administration data to reveal the most popular male names that have since disappeared from our modern world.
The data revealed 10 names popular in the early 20th century that had declined by 2020, including Willie, Elmer and Herbert – in large part due to the rise of popular culture.
The data revealed 10 common names in the early 20th century that had declined by 2020, including Willie, Elmer and Herbert.
One Reddit user combed through mountains of data to compile a list of the names of the men who died.
The Redditor, who goes by the name u/Phanyxx, started with the 1,000 most popular names of the 20th century, and tracked when they fell out of the top 1,000.
They posted the results on the “r/dataisbeautiful” page, where it has been voted on 276 times as of the date of publishing this article.
In some cases, name decline can be linked to cultural milestones.
For example, the 1987 release of the screwball comedy Ernest goes to camp An indication of the beginning of the end of the noun.
| name | Most popular year | The year it fell out of the top 1000 |
|---|---|---|
| Willie | 1946 | 2021 |
| Ernest | 1906 | 2019 |
| Clarence | 1905 | 2011 |
| Elmer | 1901 | 2010 |
| Clifford | 1909 | 2006 |
| Herbert | 1929 | 2003 |
| Herman | 1909 | 2000 |
| Chester | 1919 | 1996 |
| Claude | 1901 | 1994 |
| Bert | 1901 | 1984 |
“Ernest” was very popular at the turn of the century, reaching No. 28 in the country in 1906.
But after a steady decline over 32 years, the name dropped from the list of the 1,000 most popular men's names in the United States in 2019.
“Ernie” was not as popular as its official version, reaching No. 305 in 1945. It dropped out of the Top 1000 in 1989 – after 20 years on TV. Sesame Street for the first time.
Bert, Ernie's counterpart, was already declining when Sesame Street debuted, peaking in 1901 and falling from the top 1,000 in 1984.
Here are some names that have gone from most popular to least popular over the course of a few decades, according to Phanyxx analysis:
This list is arranged in order of most to least recent loss of popularity.
But there are some glitches in it – those were just the highlights.
For example, Herbert peaked at #25, Elmer at #38, and Chester at #53.
DailyMail.com has reached out for the full list and will update this story if we receive it.
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