BOY BANDS AND BOY NAMES

A brief, yet historical and very important look at the popularity of boy band member names.
By Jane Seidel

THE SIXTIES: The Beatles

Formed in Liverpool in 1960, The Beatles consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison, and were widely regarded as one of the most influential musical acts of the era. On February 11, 1964, they performed on The Ed Sullivan Show and brought Beatlemania to America.

By creating a variable for each Beatles member name, it is easy to create a visualization of the popularity of their names.

> Beatles <- babynames %>% filter(sex == "M", name %in% c("John", "Paul", "Ringo", "George"))

After creating the variable "Beatles," we can use ggplot to visualize the popularity of these names over the course of the band's popularity. I limited the visualization to 1960-1980, so from the start of their career to roughly ten years after they stopped producing music. I also created an x-intercept black line for all of the years in which The Beatles released albums. You can see both the command that I sent through R, as well as the visualization below.

> ggplot(Beatles, aes (x = year, y = prop, color = name)) + geom_line(size = 1) + ggtitle("Popularity of Beatles' Names") + ylab("% of population with name") + xlab("Year") + geom_vline(xintercept = 1963) + geom_vline(xintercept = 1964) + geom_vline(xintercept = 1965) + geom_vline(xintercept = 1966) + geom_vline(xintercept = 1967) + geom_vline(xintercept = 1969) + geom_vline(xintercept = 1970)

THE EIGHTIES: New Kids on the Block

An American boy band from Boston, MA, New Kids On The Block became the new kids on the block in 1984. The band consists of brother Jordan and Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, and Danny Wood. They secretly reuinted in 2007, and came back from hiatus in 2008 with a full album and tour.

By creating a variable for each NKOTB member name, we can create a visualization of the popularity of their names. I filtered the dataset of babynames through a pipe of "sex," and by picking out each of their names. I limited the variable to 1980-present, so from the five years before the start of their career to today since they reunited.

> NKOTB <- babynames %>% filter(sex == "M", year >1980, name %in% c("Jordan", "Jonathan", "Joey", "Donnie", "Danny"))

After creating the variable "NKOTB," we can use ggplot to visualize the popularity of these names over the course of the band's popularity. I also created black lines on the x-intercepts for the yeras in which New Kids on the Block released albums. You can see both the command that I sent through R, as well as the visualization below:

ggplot(NKOTB, aes (x = year, y = prop, color = name)) + geom_line(size = 1) + ggtitle("Popularity of New Kids on the Block's Names") + ylab("% of population with name") + xlab("Year") + geom_vline(xintercept = 1986) + geom_vline(xintercept = 1988) + geom_vline(xintercept = 1989) + geom_vline(xintercept = 1990) + geom_vline(xintercept = 1994) + geom_vline(xintercept = 2008) + geom_vline(xintercept = 2011) + geom_vline(xintercept = 2013)

THE NINETIES: NSYNC

The American boyband NSYNC formed in Orlando, Florida in 1995. NSYNC consisted of Justin Timberlake, JC (Joshua) Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick, Joey Fatone, and Lance Bass. They broke up in 2002, and Justin Timberlake went on to become a mega-celebrity. Lance Bass is now hosting TV's first gay reality dating show, which is also cool.

I created a variable for each member by filtering the babynames dataset through a pipe of "sex," and by picking out each of their names. I also limited the timeframe of the chart to begin when the band was formed, and to end five years after the band broke up. Finally, JC's real name is Joshua, so I charted Joshua that rather than his nickname of JC.

> NSYNC <- babynames %>% filter(sex == "M", year >1995, year <2007, name %in% c("Justin", "Lance", "Joshua", "Joey", "Chris"))

Then I charted their names over the course of the band's popularity. I think including Joshua kind of screwed it up. I also created lines on the x-intercepts for the years that NSYNC released albums. Here is the command that I sent to R to visualize this data, as well as the visualization itself:

ggplot(NSYNC, aes (x = year, y = prop, color = name)) + geom_line(size = 1) + ggtitle("Popularity of NSYNC's Names") + ylab("% of population with name") + xlab("Year") + geom_vline(xintercept= 1998) + geom_vline(xintercept= 2000) + geom_vline(xintercept= 2001) + geom_vline(xintercept= 2005)

TODAY: One Direction

After meeting on the UK's X-Factor, Simon Cowell assembled One Direction, a British boyband consisting of Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, and Zayn Malik. Zayn left the band on March 25, 2015, and a lot of people were sad. "Take Me Home (Yearbook Edition)" is their best album.

I created a variable for each of their names to chart their popularity over time. I included Zayn's name even though I am still bitter about his early exit. I also began their variable in 2005, five years before their band assembled.

> OneDirection <- babynames %>% filter(sex == "M", year >2005, name %in% c("Harry", "Louis", "Niall", "Liam", "Zayn"))

Why isn't Harry more popular? Anyway. I visualized the popularity of their names over the course of the past ten years. I also created an x-intercept line for the years in which One Direction released albums. They released my favorite album in 2012. I visualized this by sending the following command to R:

ggplot(OneDirection, aes (x = year, y = prop, color = name, xlab=("test"))) + geom_line(size = 1) + ggtitle("Popularity of One Direction's Names") + ylab("% of population with name") + xlab("Year") + geom_vline(xintercept= 2011) + geom_vline(xintercept= 2012) + geom_vline(xintercept= 2013) + geom_vline(xintercept= 2014)

CONCLUSIONS

Tragically, it appears that the popularity of a boy band does not have the biggest impact on the popularity of the names of the boys in the band. Jordan spiked in 1990, five years after NKOTB gained notoriety, but other than that, it appears that there is little correlation.