Ever Wonder How It Was That Social Security Started Compiling Lists Of The Most Popular Baby Names?

     From The Atlantic:


In 1997, Michael Shackleford was an employee of the Office of the
Actuary at the Social Security Administration's headquarters in
Baltimore; his wife was pregnant and he was determined to avoid giving
the child a common name like his own. With his access to Social Security
card data, he wrote a simple program to sort the information by year of
birth, gender, and