Some Names Are Timestamps and Some Are Invisible. The Difference Is Measurable
Sheena had 16% of its entire history in 1984. Joseph's best year was 1.2% of its use. One name tells you a decade, the other tells you nothing.
Across 798 US names with a settled peak, the median put 3.5% of its all-time use into its single busiest year, but the range runs from 19.1% for Jase to 1.2% for Joseph — which is the difference between a name that dates someone and one that does not.
Every name in this dataset has a peak year and an all-time total. Divide one by the other and you get a number nobody publishes: how much of a name's entire history happened in its single busiest year.
That number tells you whether a name is a timestamp.
The two ends
Sharpest spikes — the name marks a moment
| Name | Peak | Share of all-time use in that one year |
|---|---|---|
| Jase | 2013 | 19.1% |
| Sheena | 1984 | 16.1% |
| Jaime | 1976 | 15.7% |
| Latoya | 1984 | 11.1% |
| Khloe | 2010 | 10.8% |
| Brittany | 1989 | 10.5% |
| Debbie | 1959 | 10.4% |
| Kim | 1955 | 10.0% |
Flattest — the name dates nobody
| Name | Peak | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Joseph | 1956 | 1.23% |
| Elizabeth | 1990 | 1.23% |
| Rosa | 1925 | 1.26% |
| Maurice | 1921 | 1.28% |
| Victor | 1990 | 1.35% |
| Jessie | 1922 | 1.43% |
| Leon | 1924 | 1.47% |
| Ben | 1918 | 1.50% |
The median name sits at 3.5%.
What the two lists have in common within themselves
The sharp end clusters around identifiable moments — the years line up with a famous namesake arriving in public view. This dataset records when, not why, so treat the pattern as a pattern rather than a proven cause. But the shape is consistent: a spike is a name entering the culture from outside, all at once.
The flat end is the opposite. Joseph peaked in 1956 and Elizabeth in 1990, and neither peak means much, because both names have been in steady use for the entire 146 years this dataset covers. They have no moment because they never needed one.
The practical version, if you are choosing a name
A high concentration is not a defect. It is a trade, and it is worth making knowingly:
- A sharp name places your child precisely. Anyone meeting a Sheena can guess the decade within a few years. That is either charming or limiting depending on the decade and who is doing the guessing.
- A flat name places nobody. It carries no information about age, which is exactly why it survives fashion.
- A brand-new name is not the same as a spiky one. This is the measurement trap below.
One dataset, one country
This is US Social Security data — 146 years of it, 1880 to 2025, which is why the measurement is possible at all. It is also the only US-only dataset on this site, and every pattern above is a US pattern.
Naming fashion moves differently in Britain, Pakistan, Nigeria and Japan, and none of those have an equivalent public series going back to 1880. Where a figure does not exist, this site leaves it out rather than estimating it.
See how the top of the list has moved over 146 years at boys' names were frozen for eighty years, or what early Generation Beta names have in common at Gen Beta baby names.