Each year Service Alberta publishes a list of Alberta baby names. We’ve downloaded this list from Alberta Open Data and created the following visualization to help you see how the popularity of names has changed over the years.

Other Visualizations: Alberta Inpatient Care Costs | Alberta High School Rankings | Alberta High School Dashboard | Comparing Alberta High Schools

What are the little rectangles?

The rectangles represent the relative popularity of a name in a given year. The rectangle’s colour represents the name’s gender and its size reflects the expected frequency of the name in a population of 100,000 babies.

How do you define relative popularity?

We divide the frequency of a name by the total frequency of all names of the same gender for a given year (then multiply by 100,000).

How can I see just the boys’/girls’ names?

Use the dropdown on the side to select gender.

If the rectangles get bigger from left to right, does that mean the name is getting more popular?

Yes, the name’s relative popularity is increasing. If the rectangles get smaller, the name’s relative popularity is decreasing.

Can I sort this list?

Click the little sort icon that appears when you mouse over the column headings. The list is sorted on 2012 popularity by default.

I can’t find a name I’m looking for.

You can search for names by clicking on the search icon (magnifying glass) on the First Name dropdown on the side. We’ve filtered out names with frequencies less than 5. Check the Alberta Open Data site for original list.