--- description: Noticed a lot of J names in your life? It's not a coincidence. Use this searchable graph to find out how popular your name's sound is title: How Popular is the Sound of Your Name? image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) ## U.S. Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [interactive](/tag/interactive/) ## interactive Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # How Popular Is the Sound of Your Name? by [David Johnson](/author/dave-johnson/) ## David Johnson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 18, 2014 10:57 PM CUT by [David Johnson](/author/dave-johnson/) ## David Johnson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 18, 2014 10:57 PM CUT [See TIME’s Baby-Name Predictor](http://time.com/93911/baby-name-predictor/ "undefined") Flip through your contacts and odds are you’ll find a few Jessicas, Jennifers and Johns. Until very recently, the [soft _g_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard%5Fand%5Fsoft%5FG "undefined") — found at the beginning of most _J_ names and _G_ names like George and Ginnie — was by far the most popular sound used in baby names in the U.S. Just as individual names rise and fall in popularity, [researchers have found](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22983760 "undefined") that the sounds (or phonemes) used in names also go in and out of fashion. Up until 2008, the names beginning with a soft _g_ had the largest share among the [36 phonemes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpabet "undefined"), going back all the way to 1880, when the data from the Social Security Administration begins. It was finally overtaken by the _k_ phoneme, found in Katie, Christina and Kevin. Each line on the graph above represents one phoneme’s percentage of names in each year. While the soft _g_ (identified as _jh_) and _k_ phonemes still have the highest number of names, they are steadily declining while those like _xo_ (Xavier and Zander) and _ao_ (Oscar, Aubrey) are on the rise. These changes reflect a broader trend of increasing distribution of names among phonemes. In 1880, _jh_ owned 29% of the market. Now it only holds 13%. As America becomes increasingly diverse, so does the sound of its names. _The source code for the data used in this project is_ [_available_](https://github.com/TimeMagazine/babynames "undefined") _on Time’s GitHub page._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/103094/name-popularity/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/103094/name-popularity/"},"headline":"How Popular Is the Sound of Your Name?","datePublished":"2014-05-18T22:57:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T07:53:40.239Z","description":"Noticed a lot of J names in your life? It's not a coincidence. Use this searchable graph to find out how popular your name's sound is","url":"https://time.com/103094/name-popularity/","keywords":["interactive","names"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"David Johnson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/dave-johnson/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/interactive/","name":"interactive"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/103094/name-popularity/","name":"How Popular Is the Sound of Your Name?"}}]}] ```