Photo of the day

I actually ended up subscribing to National Geographic magazine (I certainly don’t have time to read it) because I realized I loved their photos so much.  I actually took a look at this story about amazing trees last week.  It came with a very cool poster of a giant tree that we put up in Evan’s room. I think this photo does a pretty good job of showing the scale of these giants:

Photograph by Michael Nichols

Giant sequoias live at high elevations, enduring cold, heavy snows, lightning strikes—and growing bulky and strong, though not so tall as coast redwoods. This individual, the President, is the second most massive tree known on Earth.


Where did all the Mary’s go?

I’ve long been fascinated by baby names (and the historical changes in what’s popular), so I loved this Atlantic article about the popularity of Mary falling off a cliff:


So what does the Mary trend mean? First, it’s the growing cultural value of individuality, which leads to increasing diversity. People value names that are uncommon. When Mary last held the number-one spot, in 1961, there were 47,655 girls given that name. Now, out of about the same number of total births, the number-one name (Sophia) was given only 21,695 times. Conformity to tradition has been replaced by conformity to individuality. Being number one for so long ruined Mary for this era.

Second, America’s Christian family standard-bearers are not standing up for Mary anymore. It’s not just that there may be fewer devout Christians, it’s that even they don’t want to sacrifice individuality for a (sorry, it’s not my opinion) boring name like Mary. In 2011 there were more than twice as many Nevaehs (“Heaven” spelled backwards) born as there were Marys. (If there is anything more specific going on within Christianity, please fill me in.)…

There are precedents for bringing names back. My simple linear prediction method fails once in a while, when a name’s trend turns around. The greatest example is probably Emma. Emma was at number three when the SSA records begin, in 1880. She fell almost down to #500 by the 1970s. But after a decade of uncertainty she began a fantastic run, finally reaching number one in 2008.


I don’t know (yet) what makes a name turn around like that. Why Emma and not Mildred or Bertha, both former top-10s who fell into oblivion? But if any name has a chance for a similar resurgence, it might be Mary, at least as long as Christianity keeps hanging around.

I certainly enjoyed thinking about these issues four times.  Personally we never wanted any names that were obviously trendy– yes, I’m talking about you: Jacob, Joshua, Isabelle, and Emma.  But, we did want fairly common names with a good history to them.  For the record, we’ve got David, Alexander, Evan, and Sarah.

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