This week for my lab assignment, I looked at the trends for baby names throughout the years by Gender. For this, I used a dataset for the most popular baby names in New Zealand during 2001-2010. To create my line graphs, I imported my data into this website and looked at the graphs I thought would best answer my question of “What were the most popular baby names during 2001-2010 by Gender”. As seen below, I have included an image of my graph.
As you can see, this graph is easily readable and it’s clear to see that during this time period, for males, the most popular name in New Zealand started off being Joshua, then around 2004, this changed to being the name Jack. For females, the most popular name seemed to be Ella, but the names Emma and Sophie were also very popular from 2001-2010 in New Zealand.
Something I had to change about this graph to make it more clear was splitting the line graph into two so names by Gender could be clearly deciphered. I think that this is the appropriate graph style because names can be clearly seen through the lines and the trends are obviously visible which makes it easy to answer my question. I think it’s Also appropriate that I put year on the x-axis and the count on the y-axis.
I believe that this graph is a good reflection of the information I learned from Lin’s lecture and readings. My visualization relates to DH principles in Lin’s lectures, especially because it shows how important data visualization really is. These graphs are able to cover so much, considering the large dataset. It really helped me uncover the patterns between names between 2001-2010 based on gender. I was really able to see which names were most popular. I think that it’s so interesting that data visualization can be created so quickly and so well done.
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I think the visualization of the names is really cool and I definitely agree with your decision to split it into two graphs, one for the male names and one for the female names. I am really curious though when looking at the data about why for some of the female names in the graph, the lines appear to disappear at some points randomly in the middle of the graph. Also, I think it might help the visual of your graphs if you were able to present the years on the bottom in a format that looks like a year, rather than like a number so having 2001 instead of 2,001.