be happy for this moment.

I have fallen in love with American names,

the sharp, gaunt names that never get fat.

Stephen Vincent Benet

I find all sorts of fun, time-wasting Internet sites that allow me to successfully procrastinate emptying the dishwasher, working out or doing laundry. One of my new favorite finds is the Name Voyager at Baby Name Wizard.

...and no, I'm not actually looking for a baby name. There are no babies in our near future.

All you do is type in any name and it zooms around to pop up the basic life cycle of the name. You can see what year it was most popular and how high its "rank" was.

Here are a few of my favorites stats...

RANDALL (me!):
For a girl, it has never been in the top 1,000 names in any decade since the 1800's. Hmmmm... maybe that is why people look at my funny when I tell them my name.

But for a boy, Randall was ranked highest at #58 in the early 1950s (hence why my father's name is Randall... it was actually popular then).

NICK (my fiance):
Highest rank was in the early 1900s, at #188 (I always thought it was more common than that) and then it peaked again in the early 1970s. It has been in a downward decline since... bye "Nick!"

KATE (hypothetical future daughter name):
Most popular in the 1800s at #97, huge downward slump through the rest of the century (#793 in the 1940s) and now on its way back up (#136 in 2007).

JOSEPH (hypothetical future son name):
Most popular in 1910 at #5 and then peaked again in the 1980s at #10. It has always be in the top twenty names.

LUKE (hypothetical future son name... I can only have one daughter, I only have one girl name picked out):
Looks like no one really liked the name until 2005 when it peaked at #41. Now on its way back down so hopefully if I have a Luke, say in ten years, he won't be one of four in his class.

Super fun and highly successful procrastinating tool. You'll thank me later for all of your dirty dishes and unmopped floors.

You're welcome.