The trendiest baby name in US history is not what you think
David Taylor, a data scientist and blogger, has figured out what the trendiest baby name in American history is and we doubt you'll be able to guess it. He took into consideration how quickly the name gained and lost popularity, as well as how popular the name actually was. So what is it? We'll give you one last chance to skim through that baby name book and take a wild guess....
It's...wait for it... Linda. The most normal sounding name ever!
How is this even possible? Does anyone even name their kid Linda these days? We were definitely expecting something a little more exciting.
That said, who doesn't have an Aunt Linda somewhere in their family tree? So it must have been pretty popular back in the day. Linda was winning the name popularity contest in 1947, which was one year after the song "Linda" by Jack Lawrence was released. She stayed at the top spot of the most popular baby name list until 1952, and only fell out of the top five in 1964. Sadly, the old-fashioned name is virtually dead now; only 0.22 percent of girls born in 2015 were given the name Linda.
But no name has ever come close to Linda's level of popularity. Shirley was the second trendiest baby name and we can probably thank Shirley Temple for that. What do you think the next trendiest name in history will be? Perhaps one of the 2017 baby name trends.