There’s a new page added to Waltzing More Than Matilda called Best Baby Names – you can find it at the top of the website next to About/Contact.
It’s a collection of those names which have received a rating of 75% or more from the public, and also those names which were judged to be the best of their particular name list.
A more accurate title would probably be Top Rated Baby Names, but I wanted something that would stand out and be easy to find.
I thought the list might be interesting reading, and be a helpful resource for those looking for a baby name that would likely gain widespread approval (or even those wanting to avoid a name that most people like!)
So far the list has the names from 2013, with this year’s names to be added early in 2015. As for the names from 2011 and 2012, don’t worry, I have plans for them, but you will have to be patient.
If your favourite name isn’t on the list, that may be a good thing, as it might mean you can have it all to yourself. But if your favourite name has never been featured on the blog, you can always request it to be covered, and find out if other people like it as much as you do.
Waltzing More Than Matilda 
It’s a good idea to offer lists of names that have been best rated on your blog, but I wonder if it isn’t a bit, unintentionally, misleading. As I recall, these names are usually rated against other names. Yes, they received at least 75% approval, but maybe only because they were the best of those offered in a poll and not really the most favorite names of the participants. I know that I’ve voted in polls where I didn’t like any of the names all that much and chose along the lines of “best of this lot” rather than because I -really- liked a name.
I think you might be getting confused between the two types of ratings – the names that have received a 75% or more approval rating haven’t been rated against other names.
And the names that came top of the poll on name lists didn’t ask people to vote for the best name out of that particular bunch – the question specifically asks people “Which of these names do you like?”, not “Which of these names do you like compared to other names?”. If you didn’t like the name very much, you shouldn’t have voted for it, as that might give misleading results.
I’m probably more concerned about names from the lists which might have done extremely well had they been looked at individually, rather than rated against other names. I encourage people to nominate them to be featured (I already have a couple lined up).
I know it’s not a perfect system by any means, but no system will be perfect, and it seemed a bit pointless to collect all this data and not make it available in some way.
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