The epic rise and fall of the name Heather
Recently the UK Office of National Statistics released the 2017 baby names, having a niece born last year this was of great interest to me so I know the dataset quite well.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ons.gov.uk&#x2F;peoplepopulationandcommunity&#x2F;birthsdeathsandmarriages&#x2F;livebirths&#x2F;datasets&#x2F;babynamesenglandandwalesbabynamesstatisticsgirls" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ons.gov.uk&#x2F;peoplepopulationandcommunity&#x2F;birthsde...</a><p>So that is 43 Heathers born last year in the UK. Not very many, however, compare that to the 106 Margarets born last year. Margaret is an unpopular name, however, Margaret was all the rage a century ago, Prime Ministers and Royal Family members are testament to that. But nowadays the name has gone the way of &#x27;Adolf&#x27; (of which zero were brought into the world in the UK last year).<p>What I find most interesting about names in the UK is when you have to identify yourself in hospital, with the police or anywhere else where they have access to the &#x27;full database&#x27;. Even if you have an extremely common first name then the authorities only need to know your surname and your date of birth to have a pretty good idea who you are and what your National Insurance number is. Add the town or hospital of your birth and they have an exact match. Unless your name really is &#x27;John Smith&#x27; and you give your birth town as &#x27;London&#x27; there is no chance that the police will be getting you confused with anyone and even then the other &#x27;John Smith&#x27; characters can probably be eliminated from enquiries very easily.<p>The police, secret services and others needing to go undercover go to extraordinary lengths to get the birth certificates and other particulars of &#x27;dead babies&#x27; that died a long time ago without distressing anyone except their mothers. You wonder why they do this rather than just make up any old name. Surely they could ask the passport people to just make up an appropriate passport and get the DVLA (drivers licence people) to do likewise? Well no, the statistics are quite hard to fiddle, you wouldn&#x27;t be able to just fake a &#x27;Heather&#x27; or even a &#x27;John&#x27; as people really are not as anonymous as you might think.