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Updated example of using baby names to illustrate bimodal distributions.

The thing about my way of teaching stats is that my cool, novel examples get old really fast. Like, pop culture is on a thirty-day cycle. Anyway, YEARS ago, 2014 to be exact, I blogged about illustrating bimodal data distributions  using baby name data from the Social Security Administration. Specifically, when an older name comes back into vogue, it has a bimodal distribution when you plot time on the X axis.  I stand by this example. However, all of the data illustrations come from 2014. When our traditionally aged college students were 6 or 7. Which makes this example feel a little stale. However, here is some data,  courtesy of Redditor  fevaah ,  showing  old names that are back in vogue through 2025 ! And Eleanor, Violet, Nora, and Hazel are here, illustrating bimodal distributions for a new generation. If you used my old baby-name data, this is a quick, easy refresh for your lectures (or a fun new addition if you didn't).  If this idea was help...

Update: Using baby name popularity to illustrate unimodal and bimodal data

I love internet-based teaching ideas. They are free and current. At least they were current when I first posted them, but some of my posts are ten years old. 

Such is the case for my old post about the Baby Name Voyager and how to use it to illustrate unimodal, and bimodal distributions.


Instead, please go to NameGrapher to show your students how flash-in-the-plan trendy baby names, like my own, have an unimodal distribution:


As opposed to bimodal distributions, which flag a name as a more classical name that enjoyed a resurgence, like Emma:



When I use this in class, I frame it between names that were trendy once and names that were trendy one hundred years ago and are again trendy. As a mom to grade-school-aged kids, I have certainly noticed this as a trend in kid names. So many Lilies and Noras! 

I also make sure my students understand that this information is gathered via Social Security Administration applications from the federal government, to back up another claim I make all semester long: Data is everywhere.

A good follow-up activity for this is asking your students to enter their names into the database and describe the distribution shape. 

Hat tip to Greg Jensen for pointing me to the new website.

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