Babynames
Elizabeth Driggers
2022-09-22
Analyzing Irish and Northern Irish Babynames
library(tidyverse)## ── Attaching packages ─────────────────────────────────────── tidyverse 1.3.2 ──
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## ✖ dplyr::filter() masks stats::filter()
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library(ukbabynames)
ibabynames <- read_csv("~/Downloads/archive (11)/Irish_baby_names_count_and_rank.csv")## Rows: 346898 Columns: 5
## ── Column specification ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
## Delimiter: ","
## chr (2): Names, Sex
## dbl (3): Year, Count, Rank
##
## ℹ Use `spec()` to retrieve the full column specification for this data.
## ℹ Specify the column types or set `show_col_types = FALSE` to quiet this message.nibabynames <- nibabynamesFor my Baby Names Project, I chose to examine baby names in Ireland and Northern Ireland. In the Spring of 2022 I had the opportunity to study abroad in Ireland, where I learned a lot about The Troubles — the period of ethno-nationalist conflict between Northern Ireland and Ireland from the late 1960s to late 1990s. Although the Troubles are over, there is still a lot of ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland and along the border between the two countries. One on side of the conflict are Irish nationalists, while on the other side are British Unionists. The ongoing conflict between these two groups has created a lot of violence.
The first step is to filter my data to show all the names used between 1997 and 2020. Then, I added a column to mark all the names tha showed up in the Northern Irish baby names as “TRUE” if they also showed up in the Irish baby names set.
ibabynames_filtered <- ibabynames %>%
filter(Year >= 1997 & Year <= 2020)
ibabynames_filtered <- ibabynames_filtered %>%
mutate(is_ni = case_when(Names %in% nibabynames$name ~ "TRUE"))
ibabynames_filtered$is_ni[is.na(ibabynames_filtered$is_ni)] <- "FALSE"My goal in this project was to examine if there was an overlap in names used in Northern Ireland and Ireland and how it changed over time. Specifically, I wanted to see if the use of traditional Irish names rose or fell since the end of the Troubles in the late 1990s. I suspect that they will have risen in popularity since 1997.
I started doing this by finding the most popular male and female baby names in Ireland between 1997 and 2021. I used two datasets for this project: Irish Baby Names and UK Baby Names. The Irish dataset I found on my own on Kaggle, but the UK babynames was a set we used in class. I’ve included a link to the Irish Babynames dataset below.
[Irish Baby Names dataset] (https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/megan3/irish-baby-names?resource=download) [Top 5 Irish Boys and Girls Names, 2021] (https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-ibn/irishbabiesnames2021/)
According to the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO), the most popular male names in Ireland in 2021 were Jack, Noah, James, Conor, and Rian. The most popular female names in Ireland in 2021 were Fiadh, Grace, Emily, Sophie, and Eabha. I first filtered out the top five boy names in Ireland to see how they have risen and fallen in count over time.
ibabynames_filtered %>%
filter(Names %in% c('Jack', 'Noah', 'James', 'Conor', 'Rian' )) %>%
filter(Sex %in% "M") %>%
ggplot(aes(Year, Count, color = Names)) + geom_line()
From this graph, we can see that some of these names have declined in count over time while others show a overall increasing trend. Conor, Jack, and James seem to show a decline in count since 2005 to 2010. Noah shows an overall increase in count since 1997. Rian was increasing in count but took a dive around 2014.
Next, I filtered out the top five girl names in Ireland to see how they rose and fell in popularity over time.
ibabynames_filtered %>%
filter(Names %in% c('Fiadh', 'Grace', 'Emily', 'Sophie', 'Eabha')) %>%
filter(Sex %in% "F") %>%
ggplot(aes(Year, Count, color = Names)) + geom_line()## Warning: Removed 5 row(s) containing missing values (geom_path).
This graph shows a steep increase in count for Sophie, Emily, and Grace around 2007 to 2010.However, each of these names decline pretty steadily over the next few years through 2020. What interests me is that the count of Fiadh increased almost exponentially starting after 2010. Fiadh is a very common, traditional Irish name for girls. Therefore, the popularity itself does not surprise me, but instead the quick rise in count while the count of other names fall.
Next, we’ll look at the most male popular names Ireland in 2021 and if they rose or fell in popularity in Northern Ireland between 1997 and 2020.
nibabynames %>%
filter(name %in% c('Jack', 'Noah', 'James', 'Conor', 'Rian')) %>%
filter(sex %in% "M") %>%
ggplot(aes(year, n, color = name)) + geom_line()
In this graph, we can see a decline in the names Conor, Jack, and James, but a rise in the name Noah. In addition, we see that there was minimal change and popularity with the name Rian in Northern Ireland compared to other names. Although Rian is a popular name in Ireland, we can see here that it is not quite as common in Northern Ireland. I predict this is due to the ongoing conflict between Irish, Catholic Nationalists and British, Protestant Unionists.
Next, we’ll look at how the top five most popular names in Ireland in 2021 increase or decrease in count between 1997 and 2020.
nibabynames %>%
filter(name %in% c('Fiadh', 'Grace', 'Emily', 'Sophie', 'Eabha')) %>%
filter(sex %in% "F") %>%
ggplot(aes(year, n, color = name)) + geom_line()
This graph is really interesting. It shows a steep decline in the popularity of Sophie starting around 2012. Emily and Grace seemed to increase in count as well, but then both began to decrease. Eabha is a traditional Irish name, which is why it may have had low popularity in Northern Ireland given the ongoing conflict. Fiadh continues to grow in popularity, starting right before 2010. It is a very popular Irish name and is probably used to secure the Irish roots of those who identify as Irish but are living in Northern Ireland.
When I began this project, my goal was to see how names that are common in Ireland showed up in Northern Ireland and how their count has changed over time. However, the columns used in this study were “count” and “n” because “prop” was not available for these datasets. Therefore, these graphs don’t really represent popularity of the name. If this study was to be reproduced, it would be helpful for the data to contain a column that represents popularity of a name. That being said, we were still able to examine the rise and fall in count of different Irish names, and how they compared in count to Northern Ireland. I was especially interested in seeing how the Irish traditional names in this grouping — “Rian”, “Eabha”, and “Fiadh” rose and fell in count in Northern Ireland compared to Ireland. They were definitely more popular in Ireland, but I was interested to see the rise in these names throughout the last 10 years in Northern Ireland. The other names we used in this grouping were quite common English and European names, which is why it does not surprise me that they rose and fell without much pattern. Given this data, my hypothesis was
In a future study, I would be interested in studying only Irish Traditional names and seeing if they rose or fell in popularity since the start of the Troubles in the 1960s.