I can't remember the name of the book, but I remember reading that people name babies both after celebrities and after names of the higher class people around them (with the goal of their children appearing higher class than they actually are). The latter case is interesting, because it goes in a cycle - the higher class folks pick unique names for their children, the lower class folks copy them in the next generation so those names become common, and the higher class folks pick new names in the next cycle.
So if the data was there, it'd be interesting to show these graphs both alongside celebrity popularity over time and also to divide the graphs based on socio-economic lines, to see if that is still happening.
I'm a US expat in Brazil and here people from the shanty towns name their kids Michael Jackson, George Washington, etc...except they're spelled and pronounced according to Brazilian Portuguese rules. Ex, "MJ" is pronounced something like "Mikeuw Jeksó". Another is Wallace which becomes "Uallacy" when pronounced.
There's a Peruvian film called Madeinusa (Mad-in-ewsa) about a girl of the same name, all because her mother found it on the back of a t-shirt and thought it was a good "American" name.
I agree with lemma, I think it's Freakonomics. I have some basic stats/other demo graphs that I think might be interesting. This kind of Celebrity type graphing would be fun, too. Thanks for the idea!
So if the data was there, it'd be interesting to show these graphs both alongside celebrity popularity over time and also to divide the graphs based on socio-economic lines, to see if that is still happening.