Brand Name Babies

Slate has been publishing some fascinating excerpts from a study on baby names. Today's focuses on the way popular names among the upper-class trickle down to the lower class and move in a cycle. The names of the rich end up being a much truer predictor of spikes in baby names than the names of celebrities or celebrity children. It also includes some other curious tidbits:

Increasingly, there are brand names (Lexus, Armani, Bacardi, Timberland) and what might be called aspirational names. The California data show eight Harvards born during the 1990s (all of them black), 15 Yales (all white), and 18 Princetons (all black). There were no Doctors but three Lawyers (all black), nine Judges (eight of them white), three Senators (all white), and two Presidents (both black).