Stephen Peplow
I recently found a way to extract and download from Google Books counts of words over time. This was in connection with a cultural change project which I am working on. But the temptation was too strong…let's compare the counts over time of the surnames Peplow and Salway from 1800 on
require(ngramr)
## Loading required package: ngramr
ng <- ngram(c("Peplow", "Salway"), year_start = 1800)
library(ggplot2)
ggplot(ng, aes(x = Year, y = Frequency, colour = Phrase)) + geom_line(lwd = 2)
Isn't this interesting! Why does Salway go very high in about 1820 and then about 1875? Peplow shoots up in the early 1900s: something to do with Grandad in WW1?
Those in the Atkinson family will notice that this name doesn't appear. The reason is that it just occurs so damn often it can't go on the same scale as other more modest surnames. Here is Atkinson
ng1 <- ngram(c("Atkinson"), year_start = 1800)
ggplot(ng1, aes(x = Year, y = Frequency, colour = Phrase)) + geom_line(lwd = 2)
Up and down we go. But why? Is the peak in the 1970s because of you writing all those books, Mary? And what about Lokier?
ng2 <- ngram(c("Lokier"), year_start = 1800)
ggplot(ng2, aes(x = Year, y = Frequency, colour = Phrase)) + geom_line(lwd = 2)
How the heck can we explain this? But seems like it is on the way back up. Look out!