As funny as his Dilbert cartoons are, and as funny as half of his blog posts are, Scott Adams occasionally asks some damn good questions. Today’s topic: why does the US give foreign aid to Israel?

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More baby-name fun from the Freakonomics guys. They point out a new one — “Nevaeh” — that went from eight babies in 1999 to 4,457 babies last year, and trace it to a single pop culture moment:

“The surge of Nevaeh can be traced to a single event: the appearance of a Christian rock star, Sonny Sandoval of P.O.D., on MTV in 2000 with his baby daughter, Nevaeh. ‘Heaven spelled backwards,’ he said.”

Frankly, I’m surprised Levitt and Dubner didn’t talk more about the influence of pop culture on baby names. For example, the name “Dawson” went from 734th most popular to 175th the year Dawson’s Creek debuted, and climbed to 136th the year after. “Dylan” was always resonably popular, but shot up to 28th two years after Beverly Hills 90210 went on the air. “Wyatt” went from 375th to 197th in the year after Tombstone and Wyatt Earp were released. It’s not just boys either; for girls, the name “Trinity” went from 526th the year before The Matrix was released to 74th the year after it came out. “Alyssa” went from 209th in 1983 to 180th, 130th and 86th in the years immediately following the debut of Who’s The Boss. And, perhaps the most telling, the name “Beyonce” made its one and only appearance in the list of the top 1000 baby names: it was #702 in 2001, the year Destiny’s Child released their multi-platinum Survivor album.

[all data US, from Social Security Online]

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I would like one of these t-shirts, but for the life of me I can’t imagine any situation where it would be socially acceptable.

[tags]dilbert, scott adams, freakonomics, nevaeh[/tags]