Hilary: The Most Poisoned Name In US History

Using social security data, statistician Hilary Parker looks into the popularity of certain names, and finds that the names “Hilary” and “Hillary” took a particularly steep tumble in 1992, the year that Hillary Clinton came onto the national radar. Looking at the year-over-year popularity loss, the names “Hilary” and “Hillary” are highly ranked, but not the most “poisoned” names. However, looking more closely at the other names that lost a tremendous amount of popularity in one year, it becomes clear that most of these names also gained popularity very quickly — that is, they were fad names that became popular and then unpopular very rapidly. The names “Hilary” and “Hillary”, however, were following a normal trajectory of steady increase in popularity, and then dropped off the radar in 1992. So, excluding fad names from the analysis, it becomes clear that the names “Hilary” and “Hillary” are the most “poisoned” names in US history. Further details can be found here