Brittany

[Dave Wilton]

> Using Dave Wilton's excellent suggestion of the SS Death
> Index, one finds that the first name "Brittany" does NOT
> show up between people born between 1960-70.  It first
> appears in a single female born in 1971.
> It appears with increasing frequency after that, although
> "frequency" of death in people that young would be poor
> indicators of actually numbers in the population.

The site I referenced, http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/ , takes a 5%
sample of SS *applications* as the data source, not the death index. So it
should be a fairly reliable source for names of those who are still young.
Different spellings are not aggregated, so "Brittany," "Britney," and
"Britany" would appear as three separate names.

But the data does back up what is found in the death index. "Brittany"
doesn't register in the top 1000 female names for those born in the 50s and
60s. It is the 518th most popular female name among those born in the 70s,
the 20th most popular among those born in the 80s, and 6th most popular
among those born in the 90s.