What is the trendiest baby name in American history? Jayden? Madison? Khaleesi?
在美国历史上最流行的宝宝名是什么呢？杰登？麦迪逊？卡丽熙？
The answer might not sound so trendy to you: Linda.
对你来说，答案听起来可能并不那么流行：（因为答案是）琳达。
Quantifying trendiness is tricky, since there's no universally accepted way to calculate how much of a fad a name was. But according to researcher David Taylor, Linda may very well be the trendiest name ever. Taylor devised a metric for trendiness that takes into account overall popularity as well as steepness of a name’s rise and fall. So while Mary was very, very popular, it was popular over a long time period, and therefore not trendy.
In 2015, just .022 percent of all female births in the U.S. were Lindas. But in 1947, it had the largest yearly rise ever, accounting for 5.48 percent of all baby girls’ names. This sudden meteoric rise was due to the great success of one hit single: a 1946 Jack Lawrence song named "Linda."
According to a 2009 PNAS study by marketing professor Jonah Berger, this rise-and-fall behavior may actually be the norm and not the exception: "Most names show a period of consistent increase in popularity, followed by a decline that leads to abandonment."
Will there be another name like Linda? The days when any one name could achieve 5 percent popularity for baby girls seem to be long gone. Top names for girls now hover at around 1 percent, indicative of a much greater overall diversity.
What new name will emerge from 2016? Don’t be surprised if a good amount of parents watching Stranger Things this year decide to name their baby girls Eleven.
