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Quick answers
What is the SSA baby-name file?
A U.S. compilation of given-name frequencies based on Social Security card applications, published from 1880 onward with a lag. It is a historical series, not a crystal ball.
Does ONS cover the whole UK?
The well-known baby-name release is for England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate publications. Say which office.
What does Statistics Korea publish?
Annual given-name frequency information that researchers use to watch Korean naming fashion, including shifts between Sino-Korean and native Korean names in dated years.
Why do names rise and fall together?
Lieberson’s A Matter of Taste: parents want distinction inside a style, so endings and neighbours move as clusters.
Can I say what last year’s #1 was?
Only if you cite the office and the year after that office has published. Do not invent a live #1 in this atlas’s voice.
Do celebrities cause the waves?
Sometimes they spike a name (see celebrity-influence). Lieberson argued they are over-credited relative to internal fashion.
Compare SSA, ONS and KOSTAT as siblings, not as a blended podium.
Many countries publish nothing comparable; absence is not a trend toward English names.
Regions
- United States — SSA series
Longest popular given-name time series in English-language media.
- England & Wales — ONS series
Annual media ritual with a methodology note worth reading.
- Korea — KOSTAT series
A non-English official fashion file — use it when talking about Korean names.
- Japan — Survey and insurer lists (varied)
Often media-reported; check whether the source is a full register or a sample — and the year.
- Spain & LATAM — INE and national institutes
Two-surname systems plus given-name counts where published.
- Iceland — Small population, list constraints
Trends exist but the legal pool is narrower — do not compare ranks naively to SSA.
Laws
- Statistical confidentiality All three offices — Rare names are suppressed — the tail is censored by law and policy.
- Registration law Civil-status statutes — No registration, no honest trend.
- No law of live global rank International — There is no statute creating a world #1.
- Media standards (aspirational) Stylebooks — The ethical “law” is: date the list.
Worldwide trends are a set of national sentences. Write them one at a time.