What is a Digital Humanities Project?
Sources
Our research utilizes the U.S. Social Security Administration’s (SSA) database on the frequency of baby names from the applications of Social Security Cards for newborns. We focused on studying the social and political relationship between baby names and the eras in which they gain or lose popularity. We especially consider the changing of times and how pop culture influences the behavior of American families, along with the ways in which politics such as minority assimilation can influence changes in these name frequencies. In addition to this dataset, we plan to use a number of articles, academic journals, and books to contextualize these patterns and trends in names. While the SSA’s database is very simple and bare, the additional research and sources we bring in will provide background and reasoning behind these statistics.
The use of this type of dataset allows for us to have flexibility within what we observe for our project. We’re able to grab from a large range of historical events, figures, popular media to formulate our own unique perspective on why certain names rise or fall in popularity.
We also utilized a second dataset to create the map on the population of immigrants in the US. From the Migration Policy Institute, this dataset included data from 1990 to 2022, providing the total population, immigrant population and the immigrant share of the total population for each state.
Additionally, the various eras and years that are encompassed within our data means we can use literature and external studies from different eras as well, providing us insight into the perspectives of those respective eras, and the ability to compare the culture of the past and present. Below, the annotated bibliography can be found, which properly cites the various sources referenced throughout the project.
Processing
We had exported our data provided by the Social Security Administration into four separate google sheets. We chose the states of California and New York to analyze, and separate the Male and Female names for each. This allowed us to look for nuances in our data in relation to the correlation of events and specific gender relations, along with the different locations in which these frequencies came from.
To clean our data we separated the two main states that we had examined, California and New York, into four separate google sheets, each displaying the names for the state separated by gender. Analyzing this using OpenRefine allowed us to clean and inspect specific parts of our dataset more easily, as it was rather large with many names holding similar spellings.
For our map, we used Tableau along with a secondary dataset from the Migration Policy Institute that includes demographic data, which revealed the total population of each state along with the portion of it comprised of immigrants. We chose to use a choropleth map to clearly display how the demographics of the US had changed over the years. The selected colors allow viewers to quickly identify the trends in which states had higher rates of immigration, showing the relationship between constantly changing demographics within the US and our analyzed trends in baby names.
We also used Tableau to create our data visualizations. This was especially important in showing how these trends and patterns in certain name frequencies line up with historical events and eras of pop culture. Additionally, with the separation of our data, it allows us to show the varying ways in which certain genders or states were affected by the correlational relationship between these names and their coinciding times.
Presentation
Our website was developed on WordPress. This platform was provided to us by UCLA’s Digital Humanities department, and allowed for us to work with greater flexibility in integrating our content, such as visualizations and data, along with being able to adapt the website’s design to our liking.
The color scheme of the website is inspired by the pink and blue often used to denote the gender of babies. We wanted to use these distinct and simple colors to match the theme of our data and the narrative, while keeping the website easy to look at and comprehend.
Our visualizations were labeled in similar colors to our website. While seamlessly fitting into the theme, the colors used still make the information clear and comprehensible. Additionally, our timeline, along with its integrated media, allows for users to see how events coincide with each other while providing a linear view of the events we had analyzed alongside our data.
The choice of our color scheme and use of various platforms to create the website and its visualizations were with the purpose of creating a simple and cohesive experience when navigating the website, while also having various interactable segments.
Meet the Team
Amanda Chan
project manager
Hello! My name is Amanda and I am a second-year Computer Science major. As project manager, I organized weekly team meetings and delegated tasks. In addition to this, I worked on the design and formatting of the website, wrote the blurbs for each event on the timeline and assisted with creating the data visualizations and map.
Yliah Stuart-Serrano
Editor
Hi! I’m Yliah, a second-year Cognitive Science major with minors in Theater and Film. As an editor for the project, my primary responsibilities included developing and refining our written content and ensuring our narrative remained consistent throughout each new phase.
Raphael Luis Santos
Content developer
Hi! My name is Raphael and I’m a third-year Computer Science major. As Content Developer, I helped formulate parts of our narrative and worked with our team to establish its direction. I also helped gather events for the timeline while analyzing our datasets to see how these events coincided with our data and narrative.
Annmarie
Sy Ponce
EDITOR
Hi! My name is Annmarie and I am a third year Mechanical Engineering major, with a minor in Film, TV, and Digital Media. As editor, I worked to make sure that the overall appearance of the website is consistent, readable, and accessible to our audience. I also helped on gathering events for our timeline and contributed to writing the analysis and narrative!
Khang
Thai
Data Visualization
Specialist
Hello! My name is Khang and I’m a third-year Statistics and Data Science major. As data visualization specialist, I helped clean the data as well as help developed some of the visualizations. I also helped gather and format the events for the timeline and write part of the analysis for the narrative.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to our amazing professor and TAs! We appreciate all of your help, flexibility and support throughout not only our project, but this spring quarter as a whole.
Dr. Ashley Sanders, thank you for introducing us to Digital Humanities in a way that was engaging, informative, and most importantly, fun. We have all learned a variety of skills and tools for data analysis that will be invaluable in our futures. Thank you!
To our TA, Teresa Edwards, we appreciated your continued feedback on our project greatly! We would not have been able to gain a focus for our research without your help. Thank you for always creating a friendly and welcoming environment in lab, where we could feel comfortable asking (countless) questions.