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Not Very Helpful Data Point

The Five Thirty Eight analysis of baby names looks at trying to determine the age of a person based on their name. Might not work as well if you try it on me:

Joseph has been one of the most enduring American names; it’s never gone out of fashion. So knowing that a man is named Joseph doesn’t tell you very much about his age. The median living Joseph is 37 years old, and the interquartile range (that is, the range spanning the 25th through 75th percentiles) runs from 21 to 56. In other words, a quarter of living Josephs are older than 56 and a quarter are younger than 21; the rest are somewhere in between. Not very helpful.

2 replies on “Not Very Helpful Data Point”

Well, the median age for Elizabeth was 36, so I’d say that’s pretty spot on. 🙂

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