The Fall of 'Mary'

Forget the war on Christmas. What about the fall of Mary?

I'm posting this a little before Easter to give The Media time to work up the story by the weekend. Here it is: For the first time in the history of the United States of America, the name Mary is not in the top 100 given to newborn girls. That's according to the 2009 Social Security name database. And it's not just the rankings but the raw numbers. The number of Marys born in 2009 was down 93 percent from 1961, the last year she was at #1 -- a drop from 47,645 that year to just 3,105 now.

Mary was the #1 name every year in the database from 1880 -- it's first year -- to 1961 (except for dropping to #2 to Linda, 1947-1952). The database is not perfect or 100% complete. But there is no reason to suspect it was over-counting Marys. And I'm pretty sure she was #1 before 1880, too. Naming your daughter Mary was as traditional as girls wearing blue.

This is not about immigration or ethnic diversity. Although the number of immigrants has increased, so has the number of White Christian Americans. In fact, as Stanley Lieberson has reported in his seminal analysis of American naming patterns, in the old days Mary was common among Blacks as well as Whites, and in the mid-20th century even some Jews were naming their girls Mary. The fact is: few people want to have girls named Mary. (Maria did a little better than Mary,  #71.)

To put this in perspective, there were almost twice as many girls named Nevaeh in 2009; she came in at #34. The Nevaeh trend (which appears to have peaked) is a tipoff to what's going on: the long-term increase in naming diversity. Americans want kids with less popular names than they used to. For example, the top 20 girls names were 34% of the total in 1940s, but they now represent just 12%. Isabella, today's #1, was given to just 1.1% of girls in 2009. In 1961 Mary was given to more than twice that proportion, 2.3%.

If Americans like tradition, maybe they just want other people to name their daughters Mary. So, this Easter, who will stand up for Mary?

From the Family Inequality blog.

 

Comments

[powercosmic]

12:01 PM on 04/21/2011

F--k "Tradition" !

Tradition prevents RENEWAL. Tradition is all about holding back the next generation and imposing a worldview that is devoid of dreams or surprises.

This is why nothing changes for the better, now America has acquired some old-world "Traditions" like that of the Rich-Getting-Richer and the Middle-Class getting poor.

Cram all your "traditions" in the dustbin of history where they belong, its time for a social revolution...

[arabia]

09:18 AM on 04/22/2011

Americans love tradition and ritual. Witness military services for the fallen (i.e., the way the flag is carried, folded, the salute, etc); think of the democratic traditions we uphold in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. Think of Thanksgiving and turkey and Christmas and the 4th of July. All those involve traditional holidays and traditions that have been handed down to us from the past. Each generation re-invents them or adapts to them in different ways. Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, have traditions like Easter (their most important holy day) as Jews have Passover, as Muslims have Ramadan and as Hindus have Brahma holidays.

[lepetiterouge]

11:45 AM on 04/21/2011

meh, i live downstairs from a mary in her mid 20's, and if i ever have a daughter, i'm gonna name her marian, after my grandmother mary ann. the name is still around.

[Philip N. Cohen]

12:27 PM on 04/21/2011

Yes, there are still a few thousand Marys born every year. If your income dropped 93%, would you say, "Meh. I still have income"?

[lepetiterouge]

10:12 PM on 04/21/2011

depends on how big the income started out as....

[JOHNSPEAKS]

10:15 PM on 04/20/2011

-Liberalism- is now the dominant thinking of most Americans and Christans are now a minority? This means that people no longer have any values and they no longer want to be reminded by a daughter named -Mary- of how pure America used to be???

[lancea longini]

10:54 PM on 04/20/2011

Tell me in which year was America pure?

[JOHNSPEAKS]

07:24 AM on 04/21/2011

Anybody can nick pick any subject under the sun to explain their ideas about anything? When human beings start to think that they are the center of the universe and they no longer think they need -Religion- (Mary) and or -God- (Mary) and or -Values- (Mary) etc. etc. etc. then they no longer have a purpose in life other than themselves? Compared to the rest of the world we are -Saints- in that every great civilization has had warts etc. in their climb to the top? When a great civilization starts to decline -Liberalization- is used to explain how great they think they are and they no longer need any -Values- and or -Discipline- and or Religion- and or -God-???

[FoxReincarnated]

05:06 PM on 04/20/2011

If Americans like tradition, they wouldnt be Christian, but some older belief system they assume to be lesser than themselves