A Boy Named Sue?: On the Rank and Popularity of Surnames and Given Names

If you ever listened to the man-in-black, Johnny Cash, then you will remember his huge Billboard 100 hit, "A Boy Named Sue", which he recorded live at San Quentin prison in February, 1969. I had always assumed Cash was singing about the misfortunes of a boy with the given name of Sue.

If Cash was actually referring to the lad's first name, then the name Sue was indeed an unfortunate and extreme rarity. No wonder the boy had to fight so much. Sue clearly had his work cut out for him. But if Cash was instead singing about the boy's surname, then that would have been a little different.

It seems that Sue, when used as a surname ranks #18,913 in popularity the U.S. list of last names. That's very rare statistically speaking, but not quite as rare as a male with the first name of Sue. In fact, if a boy with the first name of Sue actually exists, he is so rare as to be neither ranked nor listed on any list I have found thus far.

All of this got me thinking about our own names and where we fit on the lists that identify the relative ranking and rarity of first and last names. A bit of research turned up a few things that were probably entirely predictable and many more that were a bit of a surprise to me.

If your last name is Smith, for instance, you can refer to yourself as #1, because that's where the name is listed insofar as ranking. A Mr. or Mrs. Smith turns up once in about every 99 people we encounter. The Jones are trying to keep up with the Smith's in this case, coming in at #4 and appearing once in every 161 folks who are all doing their share to snarl traffic every day.

You might think that the name Bob would be exceedingly common. You would be correct. It is exactly that at #266 and 1 in every 1,818 males if it happens to be the given or first name that you're referring to. But if Bob is being discussed as a surname or last name, it's #16,626 and 1 in every 100,000, making it very fairly rare in the scheme of things.

Mary ranks at #1 for a girl's first name, but at #12,571 as a last name. Makes me wonder how Mary Mary; (as in quite contrary) would have placed on the list. I also found that there are some Common people and even more than a handful of Magic people out there, but surprisingly, the Common are less common than the magic ones, because at #36,061 the surname Common just edges out the surname Magic at #31,595 in its relative rarity.

If you've been concerned about your taste for cheap alcohol and tend to settle for beer over champagne, take heart. Beer ranks #5,970, while Champagne comes in at #1,988, making beer three times rarer than champagne on the list of surnames. When Frank Zappa named one of his kids Moon, he must have thought he was cleverly bestowing a rare and unusual name, but he really needn't have bothered. Zappa itself comes in at #26,906 and places the surname in the very rare category.

Paris HiltonParis Hilton, of course, has always seen herself as being exquisitely rare. Her name, however, is really not all that rare. Paris comes in at #2,006, while Hilton places a rather common #1,161. Among talk show hosts, Letterman was the rarest of that already odd lot, listed at #35,345. Leno came in at #20,748, while pioneer Johnny CarsonJohnny Carson ranked down there amongst the commoners at #774.

When I decided to take a quick look at our recent presidents, I was unable to locate either a Barack or an Obama on any of the lists, attesting, perhaps, to the relative rarity of the current occupant of the White House. Of course, in a few years all of that could easily change, with the explosion in popularity of parents using both names for children just now being born.

President Obama's predecessor, on the other hand, came in at a surprisingly common #304 and Bushes of all kinds could be found as 1 in every 2,777 people that you encounter. Perhaps the biggest surprise that I found in all of my research on names, however, was in the adjacent entry I happened to stumble upon that concerned Mr. Bush. It seems that the word Bush, when used as an adjective, as in the Bush Administration, is defined as being: "Not of the highest quality or sophistication." I am not making any of this up.

That left me with my own surname of Crumrine which came in at #15,875 and 1 in 100,000 on the list. Suddenly I was feeling pretty special; thinking myself a very rare bird indeed, particularly when compared to our former president. Not that I was of better quality or more sophisticated, necessarily, but at least in some ways I qualified as rarer when it came to the ranking of names on a list.

If he was a real feeling kind of guy, though, I guess Dubya could take this news pretty hard. After all, everyone among us wants to be special and to distinguish themselves in some way. On the other hand, I suppose Dubya can always take solace in the fact that George H. W. didn't name him Sue.

Source: OneLook.com