In Case You Were Wondering...

... here is the formula for our perfect name:

isgood = (stddev<=meanpop) ...no popularity spikes
& ((lastdate - firstdate) >= 90) ...been around a while
& peakpop >=250; %no weirdos
uniquenames(isgood)
sum(isgood)

When you run it in a geeky software program called Matlab, you get a list of "timeless" boy names, which is what we're going for.

So how do you mathematically define "timelessness?"

Leigh's formula identifies names with small standard deviations from the mean - in other words, names that don't have large spikes in popularity (think "Jennifer" and "Jason" circa 1976). It gets a little dicey with a few names, like Henry, which had wild popularity in the late 1880s (when all boys were named Henry, William and Robert) but has since tapered off. Leigh has tried to sort out this problem by plugging in other limiting parameters, like finding names above a certain popularity threshold and ruling out names with large spikes confined to a 10-year period.

I've tried to argue that "timelessness" is a quality rather than a mathematical distribution of name popularity. The number of "Sophias" has spiked dramatically in the last 10 years, but I would still argue that it's a "timeless" name. A "Sophia" can be 80 years old or 3 years old. Timeless.

Leigh doesn't buy it.

In any event, here are "timeless" boy names, as defined by Leigh's software program. It's worth noting that our current favorite is on the list. And don't try quibbling with this name, or that name. You can't argue with a computer.

timeless = { ...
'Alan'
'Alex'
'Alexander'
'Alfonso'
'Anderson'
'Andrew'
'Anthony'
'Antonio'
'Benjamin'
'Bennett'
'Blaine'
'Brooks'
'Byron'
'Calvin'
'Carlo'
'Charles'
'Clay'
'Clayton'
'Clinton'
'Curtis'
'Daniel'
'David'
'Davis'
'Dean'
'Dexter'
'Duncan'
'Dwight'
'Edward'
'Eliot'
'Elliott'
'Emmett'
'Felix'
'Forrest'
'Frederick'
'George'
'Graham'
'Grant'
'Harrison'
'Henry'
'Isaac'
'Ivan'
'Jack'
'Jacob'
'James'
'Jay'
'Jefferson'
'Jesse'
'Joel'
'John'
'Jose'
'Joseph'
'Julian'
'Julio'
'Karl'
'Kenneth'
'Lamar'
'Lawrence'
'Lincoln'
'Lorenzo'
'Malcolm'
'Marcel'
'Marcus'
'Mario'
'Mark'
'Marshall'
'Matthew'
'Michael'
'Miles'
'Mitchell'
'Moses'
'Nathan'
'Nathaniel'
'Neil'
'Nelson'
'Nicholas'
'Noel'
'Nolan'
'Patrick'
'Paul'
'Peter'
'Philip'
'Preston'
'Quentin'
'Ramon'
'Raphael'
'Raul'
'Raymond'
'Reginald'
'Reid'
'Reuben'
'Richard'
'Robert'
'Roberto'
'Roderick'
'Roman'
'Ross'
'Ruben'
'Russell'
'Samuel'
'Saul'
'Simon'
'Spencer'
'Stephen'
'Sterling'
'Stuart'
'Thomas'
'Tomas'
'Vance'
'Vaughn'
'Victor'
'Vincent'
'Wade'
'Warren'
'Wesley'
'William'
'Wilson'};