Author

Ivy Hung
Data Journalist
Based in Arizona, USA
Ivy is a data journalist based in Arizona, United States. A business school graduate now working her way into tech, she spent her early career in product marketing, project management, and marketing strategy — roles where reading a name the same way you read a brand became second nature.
She joined NamesPop because the name datasets sit at exactly the intersection she cares about: consumer behaviour, cultural identity, and what numbers tell us about decisions families make quietly, one at a time. Her writing leans on SSA and municipal pet registries the way a marketer reads a segmentation report — looking for the audiences hiding inside the aggregate.
Cross-cultural naming is her main beat, with a particular interest in how Hispanic, Asian-American, and bicultural families navigate the tension between heritage and assimilation in the American Southwest.
2,409
Total pieces
140
Articles
1,119
Baby commentary
1,150
Pet commentary
Ivy Hung's contributions
- Articleanalysis
The Papal Name Paradox: A Year After Leo XIV, the Name Leo Barely Moved. Here's Why That's the Story.
Conventional wisdom says big spiritual moments move naming behavior. The Leo XIV case proves the opposite: when a name is already trendy enough, even a globally watched papal election barely registers.
·8 min read
- Articleanalysis
The Spanglish Name: Children Who Live in Two Languages Before They Can Speak
Before he said his first word, his name was already fluent in two languages. The intimate story of bridge names in bilingual households.
·9 min read
- Articleanalysis
The Joybait Cohort: Why 'Truce' Jumped 11,000 Spots and What Peace-Themed Names Reveal About 2026 Parents
Truce isn't a name. It's a thesis statement. When parents pick a word like Truce or Halo or Solana, they're signaling a fatigue with naming as a political signal.
·7 min read
- Articleanalysis
The Mariachi Reyna Effect: How Karol G's Historic Coachella Set Is Reshaping Latina Baby-Name Confidence
Karol G's all-Latina Coachella set wasn't just a concert. For a generation of parents who have spent a decade hedging on accent marks and rolled R's, it played like a permission slip.
·7 min read
- Articleanalysis
Avalanche Cup Runs Move Hockey Names At The State Level, Not The National Level
Colorado opened the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs as the Presidents' Trophy holder this Saturday and the Cup favorite. Hockey-coded names like Cale and Nathan see Colorado-specific SSA growth that exceeds the national pattern. The state-level cuts are where the residue lives.
·9 min read
- Articleanalysis
Baby Name Market Segmentation: The 6 Parent Personas Hiding in SSA Data
Every baby name is a vote. Here are the 6 voting blocs hiding in 140 years of SSA data — a marketer's segmentation of how American parents actually name.
·10 min read
- Articleanalysis
Themed Sibling Sets Are An Old American Tradition. The Mahomes Just Made Them Visible.
Sterling Skye, Patrick "Bronze" Lavon, and now 15-month-old Golden Raye Mahomes form a coherent metallic-celestial sibling set. Themed sibling sets are not new. They are an old American naming tradition that is finally getting visible at scale.
·9 min read
- Articleanalysis
The Frida Premium: Why Culturally Rooted Names Are Outperforming Anglicized Versions Among Gen Z Latino Parents
Millennials named her Sophia. Gen Z is naming her Sofía — and Frida, and Xiomara. The cultural confidence shift behind the numbers.
·10 min read
- Articleanalysis
The Immigration Lag: How 10 Years of Border Policy Shows Up in Baby Name Data
The names changed before the laws did. Cross-referencing SSA data with immigration statistics uncovers a 3-5 year signal that policy analysts consistently miss.
·10 min read
- Articleanalysis
Lauren Betts's NCAA Title Just Asked Whether Lauren Can Reverse A Thirty-Year Decline
UCLA beat South Carolina 79-51 last night for the women's NCAA championship. Lauren Betts won the Most Outstanding Player award. Lauren as a baby name has been declining for three decades. The question is whether a single MOP run can reverse a thirty-year curve.
·9 min read
- Articleanalysis
Sixty Days After Decoy: The Children's-Book Pet-Naming Influence Pattern Holds
Sixty days after Decoy Saves Opening Day hit the New York Times children's bestseller list, the pet-naming residue is tracking the durable five-year-asset pattern rather than the six-month-spike pattern. The book is doing the work I projected it would.
·9 min read
- Articleanalysis
Spring Puppy Adoption Names Track MLB Opening Day Rosters With A 30-Day Lag
Late March puppy adoption season and MLB Opening Day rosters share a structural 30-day naming pipeline. NYC and Seattle pet-licensing files reflect the residue almost like clockwork year after year.
·9 min read
- Articleanalysis
Nova, Ember, Echo: When SaaS Product Names Quietly Become Baby Names
Nova was a Zendesk competitor in 2018. Now it's a top-40 baby name. The aesthetic overlap between SaaS branding and nursery culture is not a coincidence.
·9 min read
- Articleopinion
Bark At The Park Is The Underrated MLB Pet-Naming Engine That AKC Actually Tracks
Bark At The Park promotions are one of MLB's fastest-growing fan-engagement categories. The Pirates have 12 dog-friendly games on the 2026 schedule alone. AKC pet-name registration files quietly reflect the residue from this growing engagement category.
·9 min read
- Articleanalysis
The Silent Middle Name: How Chinese and Korean Families Hide Heritage in Plain Sight
White America is killing the middle name. Asian America is using it as a time capsule. The story of how heritage gets hidden in plain sight on a birth certificate.
·10 min read
- Articleanalysis
Sweet 16 Diffusion Looks Different For Women's Basketball Than For Men's
The men's NCAA Tournament tends to spike already-existing names. The women's tournament keeps generating new SSA-file entries. The 2026 Sweet 16 weekend is the latest test of a pattern that has been visible for at least five years.
·9 min read
- Articleanalysis
The Border Name: How Arizona, New Mexico and South Texas Baby Names Diverge from the Rest of America
Cross the Rio Grande and the #1 name flips overnight. SSA state-level data reveals naming patterns in the Southwest that national charts completely miss.
·9 min read
- Articleanalysis
The Ethan Effect: Why Asian-American Parents Pick "Safer" Names Than Their White Neighbors
For many Asian-American immigrant families, names like Ethan and Emma aren't just popular choices. They're calculated hedges against a discriminatory world. Here's what the data shows.
·10 min read
- Articleanalysis
The Sofía-Sophia Split: How Second-Generation Latino Parents Are Redrawing the Baby Name Map
Every year, Sofía loses a tilde — and a family tells a story about America. Three spellings, three generations, one name at the center of bicultural identity.
·10 min read
- Articleanalysis
Dekopin And Decoy Are The Same Dog. The Two Names Are Different Languages Of Love.
Decoy Ohtani has two names. Dekopin in Japanese, Decoy in English. Same dog, different languages, different people speaking them. The dual-name pattern is becoming the bilingual American family's quiet template for pet naming.
·9 min read
How we work
Editorial policy →
Topic selection, verification, corrections.
How we gather data
Methodology →
Sources, processing pipeline, limitations.