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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...

FREE STP Book: "For the love of teaching undergraduate statistics"

Hi, friends.

There is a free, new edited volume that contains 18 terrific chapters of ideas and hints and guidance for teaching undergraduate statistics. Drs. Beyer & Peters but so much work into gathering ideas from great teachers and now we can all enjoy it. 



I wrote Chapter 1. In it, I make an argument that we need to teach statistics to our psychology UGs in a way that better matches how they will use the statistics. TL:DR: 4% of psychology UGs get PhDs in psychology. So maybe we should reconsider how and who we are teaching.

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