The West Wing: The next generation
There used to be a forum on the Television Without Pity site titled something like “You know you’re watching too much The West Wing when …” I had one of those moments yesterday when I saw this headline go by on my blog reader: “Naming trends: out of 20 boys, there are five Joshes and four Sams.”
And I immediately thought, “Of course! People were naming their children after Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn!”
It turned out the story in question was about a school class in New Zealand with a preponderance of Joshuas and Samuels. I don’t know if The West Wing was big in New Zealand, and it doesn’t specify the age of the boys, although they look about right to have been conceived during the show’s run. But it seems like such a sweet coincidence, doesn’t it?
Out of curiosity, I checked the Social Security Administration’s listing of popular U.S. baby names, and while “Joshua” has been in the top 5 for the past 15 years, “Samuel” has been in the 20s, and “Josh” and “Sam” as names all by themselves were well down into the multiple hundreds.
Interestingly, “Matthew” and “Daniel” are both top-ten names, although we probably can’t claim those for Studio 60 at least until the 2007 tallies are out. “Danny” is back down in the over-100s, though, and “Matt” as a freestanding name has apparently not been in the top 1,000 for the past 15 years.
Giving it something in common with “Harriet.” Are those two meant to be, or what?
Photo: NBC.com
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