YHB’s Gracious Host links to The Sweetest Sound: Popularity Index. This is a widget for finding out how common a particular surname is. YHB’s surname, for instance, is around the 1,500th most frequently occurring in the US. My Best Reader, on the other hand, is out of the database, which means it’s not in the top 50,000. Being who I am, it wasn’t long before I started typing in the following names:
Kennedy: 120Coincidence? You be the judge. For further consideration:Johnson: 2
Nixon: 813
Ford: 108
Carter: 41
Reagan: 2035
Bush: 311
Clinton: 1703
Goldwater: 31,662Oh, all right.Humphrey: 643
McGovern: 2,011
Mondale : more than 55,000
Dukakis: more than 55,000
Gore: 1,119
Kerry: 14,762
Richardson: 64For what it’s worth, Bradley ranks 191. So it’s not like the fellow with the lowest number wins. And it’s not even (what I had thought likely) that you pretty much have to have a number below 2,000 (or so) to get the nomination, or even to get far enough in a political career to have a decent chance at the nomination. Eisenhower ranks way up there at 22,546. AlthoughEdwards: 50
Warner: 366
Bayh: more than 55,000
McCain: 1,579
Romney: 17,519
Frist: more than 55,000
Dupont: 3428Buchanan: 429
Forbes: 1017
Gephart: 16,540
Dean: 235
Sharpton: 21,589
Clark: 21
Graham: 101
Lieberman: 3619
Braun: 984
Kucinich: more than 55,000
OK, I think that’ll do.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.