more on the alphabet distribution over the genders

The phenomenon that I noted some weeks back, namely that in many datasets (having roughly equal numbers of boy's names and girl's names) sorted alphabetically it's possible to draw a line such that the majority of the women's names are on one side and the majority of men's on the other, has evidence in contemporary naming practices too. Joel just pointed me towards this article, and while they do say some moderately silly things (such as "Girls' names are more diverse than ever" -- not really. The feminine name pool has always been more diverse than the masculine. It could very well be that girls' names are more diverse than they have been in the 20th C, but that's not the same as "ever"), but, on the basis of last year's social security baby name data, they comment:

Similarly, the most popular first letter for boys; names is J, as it was for much of the 20th century. The most popular first letter for girls is the once-obscure A, thanks partly to rising names like Avery, Arianna and Ava.

Which is in line with the phenomenon that I've noticed.

quiet Saturday

Had all sorts of plans to maybe go out to the Dali exhibit at the Kunsthalle this weekend (which is still possible, since tomorrow is still the weekend) but that didn't happen today, through a combination of:

- it started raining (and was down to 14C!) right about the time I would've gotten off my butt and headed out.
- Joel accidentally took my camera's memory card home so if I thought I'd be taking any pictures (probably) first I need to go out and get a new card. Unfortunately, the nearest MediaMarkt is 15 metro stops away, which is not inconvenient but is time consuming.
- despite having slept as late as I wanted (no alarm set) I'm just feeling unreasonably tired and unmotivated.

So instead I've spent most of the day reading on the couch. I just had some lemon-lime-elderflower yoghurt which was delicious; it would've been divine if it was actual real, thick yoghurt, rather than this thin, 0.1%, watery stuff which is all I've been able to find at the supermarkets. Still tasty.

Really miss Joel. Last night I even checked to see how much it would cost to fly home for the weekend...at 200EUR I was awfully tempted, but couldn't quite justify it. Only 11 more days until I go home.