Contrary to popular belief, Shaniqua is not a common name for black women. Often used as a stereotype to represent unique names used in the African-American community, it barely reached over 1000 names a year twice in the early 1990s before nearly disappearing. For perspective, if you were named Shaniqua, there is a good chance you were the only one in your entire school or town with that name. Shaniqua (and its spelling varieties) don’t even make the cut in the names database beyond 2010. According to comments on behindthename.com, the name rose to popularity from the 1990 hip hop song “Shaniqua” by Oran “Juice” Jones. Sadly, the name doesn’t have a good reputation these days, prompting one commenter on babynamewizard.com to say, “My name is Shenequia and when I tell people my name , they say ‘well you don’t act like a Shenequia'”. So what exactly is someone named Shaniqua supposed to act like anyway?
Cute and funny mascot videos
I love Orbit, the Houston Astro’s mascot:
Bunch of NBA mascots dancing (2:00 is funny!)
I love how some players are watching them in this one:
Click to see more!
Public School Data By State
I created a a Google Sheet to show public school racial and economic statistics on a state level. You can sort and play around with the data as you’d like.
Looking at the results was a good reminder of how the makeup of each state can be really different. I also had no idea how high the African-American percentage was in Washington D.C. and how low it was in some states, like Idaho, Montana, and even Oregon.
There is a column showing the percentage of students receiving or qualifying (not sure which it is, actually) for free or reduced lunch. There is a federal program that specifies income levels a family must have in order to qualify. There are two states that stand out in this list as being really low- California and Maine. It is possible for schools, especially charter schools I’d imagine, to forgo the federal lunch program and do their own thing, so that can account for some of this. I also wonder if the higher than average cost of living in California results in higher salaries and therefore less people qualify, assuming the program doesn’t higher the income levels for California. But as far as Maine goes, I was not aware of them being a wealthy state, so I’m not sure why only 4.8% are on the lunch program. Maybe something to do with their smaller than average school size? Maine has many schools with only a handful of students, so they probably aren’t going to have a full-fledged cafeteria, but I’m not sure if that matters. Just speculating.
Mean Tweets – Obama
I love Jimmy Kimmel’s Mean Tweets segment. Check this one out with President Obama!
Teen Mom Influence
Click to enlarge
I’ll admit that I watched 16 and Pregnant (premiered in 2009), Teen Mom, and Teen Mom 2 when they came out. The two names from the show that have really been affected are Maci and Bentley (seen at left). Bentley is Maci’s son and they were from the very first episode of 16 and Pregnant and then Maci continued her story through Teen Mom. Maci was popular and successful in high school before becoming a teen mom and compared to the others, she seemed to be on a good track and come from a good family. She was shown juggling college and dealing with her baby’s daddy, Ryan, in the first season. Maci is a fan favorite and her son Bentley is super adorable, so it’s no surprise the name Bentley shot through the roof almost more than any other name in the 2000s. Many other reality show names also saw huge increases- The Hills’ Audrina went from 8 names in 2005 to 931 in 2008 and Laguna Beach’s Talan saw a 10,000% spike from 2003 to 2006 (it basically went from nonexistence to about 1000 babies).
The table after the break includes teen moms Maci, Jenelle, and Farrah; Maci’s son Bentley, Jenelle’s son Jace, and Chelsea’s daughter Aubree. All of these names showed an increase during the years their show was on. Interestingly, only the spelling Maci saw an increase. Macy and Macey actually went down during recent years. Some of the names, such as Bentley and most of the moms’ names, have started a downward trend after their brief popularity spike, so perhaps they’ll just be a fad. I would also bet that some people don’t want their son to be “the kid who was named after that boy on Teen Mom.”
Top 20 Largest U.S. Megachurches in 2015
Note: This table doesn’t appear to allow for horizontal scrolling on some mobile devices and is best viewed on a tablet or desktop. Someday, maybe, I’ll fix it or design it. But by that point, it will be time for a new list…
| Church | Location | Denomination | Attend-ance | Founded | Sites | Senior Pastor | Age | Something Interesting | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lakewood Church | Houston | TX | non-denominational | 43000 | 1959 | 1 | Joel Osteen | 51 | Joel’s approximately 20 books have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. As of 2004, he stopped taking a salary from the church, but he’s made enough from books and other engagements to allow him to live in a $10 million mansion. |
| 2 | Northpoint Ministries | Alpharetta | GA | non-denominational | 31228 | 1995 | 6 | Andy Stanley | 56 | Reminded me a bit of Crossroads- would read stuff like “creating churches that unchurched people loved to attend.” |
| 3 | NewSpring Church | Anderson | SC | Southern Baptist Convention | 30791 | 2000 | 11 | Perry Noble | 42 | Pastor seems to be a “say anything” kind of guy and the church even paid for billboards leading people to the site parentsareclueless.com |
| 4 | Gateway Church | Southlake | TX | non-denominational | 25157 | 2000 | 5 | Robert Morris | ? | They have a program for 7th-12th graders from single-parent homes |
| 5 | Church of the Highlands | Birmingham | AL | non-denominational | 24860 | 2001 | 10 | Chris Hodges | ? | Like several other churches on this list, has its own training college called Highlands College |
| 6 | Willow Creek Community Church | South Barrington | IL | non-denominational | 24517 | 1975 | 7 | Bill Hybels | 63 | Both the main website and pastor’s site felt very business-like as they strive to attract new members. Bill’s site sold books, dvds, and other materials |
| 7 | Saddleback Church | Lake Forest | CA | Evangelical | 23980 | 1980 | 9 | Rick Warren | 60 | Rick was influenced to write a spiritual diet book after baptizing 800 people in one day and realizing how many people are obese. But his most popular book is The Purpose Driven Life and it’s the second most translated book in the world besides The Bible. |
| 8 | Southeast Christian Church | Louisville | KY | Evangelical | 22225 | 1962 | 4 | Dave Stone | 53 | Campus has a workout facility, adult and youth sports programs, a bookstore (money they make helps fund radio airtime) and a full-service café. |
| 9 | Christ’s Church of the Valley | Peoria | AZ | non-denominational | 21381 | 1982 | 5 | Don Wilson | 65 | Intro video was good, but ended with “I’d like to invite you to one of our services where we can help you win at life,” which sounded a little too much like a business, not a church. |
| 10 | Phoenix First Assembly of God | Phoenix | AZ | Assemblies of God | 21000 | 1924 | 1 | Luke Barnett | 45 | Lead pastor is the son of the former pastor (who is still employed) and both of his siblings are also in leadership positions. Pastor’s wife, Angel, is the directory of women’s ministry. They have a big Christmas production that includes a real camel and elephant! |
| 11 | Christ Fellowship Church | Palm Beach Gardens | FL | non-denominational | 20260 | 1984 | 9 | Todd Mullins | ? | Their Palm Beach building seems really cool (almost too cool?) with its cute city/town theme. |
| 12 | Second Baptist Church | Houston | TX | Southern Baptist Convention | 19552 | 1927 | 5 | Dr. Ed Young | 78 | Church has a restaurant inside called Jane’s Grill as well as a fitness center and sports programs for adults and youth. |
| 13 | Woodlands Church | Woodlands | TX | Southern Baptist Convention | 19265 | 1993 | 3 | Kerry Shook | 52 | They have “Woodlands Seminary”, a training program that cost $1000 a semester. |
| 14 | Eagle Brook Church | Centerville | MN | Baptist | 19029 | 1949 | 6 | Bob Merritt | ? | Seeker-friendly church that is Baptist but open to people of all denominations. Mission trips include the country of Norway, a country not known for religious involvement. |
| 15 | Calvary Church of Ft. Lauderdale | Ft. Lauderdale | FL | Calvary Chapel | 18000 | 1985 | 10 | Doug Sauder | 45 | They have 32 people labeled as pastors and not a single one is female. Their founding pastor recently stepped down in 2014 after “moral failure”, which was having affairs with more than one woman and committing sexual immorality through a porn addiction. He used to run a casino with exotic dancers in Vegas before committing his life to Christ. Also admitted to cocaine in the past. |
| 16 | Flatirons Community Church | Lafeyette | CO | non-denominational | 17187 | 1993 | 2 | Jim Burgen | ? | From wikipedia: “[Burgen] attributes the church’s huge growth since being founded to its avoiding the “weirdness of religion” and instead providing a place to heal.” Bergen seems like he’s willing to tackle tough topics and say anything. Against “bad religion” and gave a sermon on how he’s tired of rules religions make, like no alcohol. |
| 17 | Crossroads Church | Cincinnati | OH | non-denominational | 17064 | 1995 | 5 | Brian Tome | 49 | Humor can be found on site- in the FAQ you can find questions like “what happens with leftover money?” Answer: “There is currently a fund to bankroll the Sr. Pastor’s assistant’s private Caribbean island for her retirement.” Also: “Is this place a cult?” |
| 18 | The Potter’s House | Dallas | TX | non-denominational | *17000 | 1996 | 4 | T.D. Jakes | 57 | The staff member’s email addresses are @tdjakes.org, which would be the pastor’s name. One of only two churches in this list that listed female pastors on the website. |
| 19 | Hopewell Missionary Baptist | Norcross | GA | Baptist | 16000 | 1981 | 1 | William Sheals | 67 | Technically, it was founded around 1865 by freed slaves, but it began a rebirth in the 1980s thanks to Pastor Sheals. His second marriage to wife Patricia contained 106 bridesmaids and groomsmen (53 of each). |
| 20 | Elevation Church | Matthews | NC | Southern Baptist Convention | 15482 | 2006 | 12 | Steven Furtick | 34 | Very fast growing church with over 25 “extension” locations. The website had me asking myself, “is this a church or a company?” Furtick is very perfect sounding and the site is very polished. Offers to give newcomers a “VIP Experience” if they sign up ahead of time. His personal website contains a menu item “Special Offer” where if you donate money of any size (but they def suggest $25 or more) you get a DVD. Furtick caught some flak for building a 1.7 million dollar home for his family of four that he called “a gift from God.” |
| Averages: | 22630 | 35.7 years | 5.8 | 54.5 |
“Is this the movie theaters?” “No, sir, it’s a church. A very large one.”
Since I happen to go to a megachurch (Crossroads Church in Cincinnati), I recently became curious about all the other megachurches out there. The word megachurch just implies that it’s a really large church and nothing else, even though the megachurch stereotype includes modern worship services with loud music and a place where you have comfy seats and can bring your coffee in, but not all of these churches are like that. It was eye-opening for me to check out all these other churches (by looking at their websites and articles about them- thanks Google!) and compare them to mine. Kind of brought me out of my bubble a bit. On the one hand, it was interesting to see so many commonalities between them all (like their extension locations), which made my church not seem as unique, but it also made me appreciate my church more for certain things, like how we don’t sell books and other materials on our website and our senior/founding pastor doesn’t even have a picture or bio up on the website because he’s not trying to make it all about him (I’m assuming). They are all heavy on the males in leadership- every single church has a male senior pastor that is on average 54 years old and only two- The Potter’s House and Hopewell Missionary Baptist- are non-white. All the pastors are married with kids and it appears only one- William Sheals of Hopewell Missionary Baptist- is divorced (he is now remarried). I found only two churches, The Potter’s House and Crossroads, that listed female pastors. Most of the churches, especially those near the top of the list, had very snazzy websites and videos. Oddly, I was kind of happy my church’s website wasn’t as sleek- it felt more like a true church and less business-like and consumer-driven (update: the website has been updated since this post was written).
I love that my megachurch is a place that is capable of doing great things. Crossroaders are very generous people who have donated tons of their own money to make things happen in our city and elsewhere, like funding after-care homes for girls rescued from sex slavery in India. We don’t focus on religious rituals but rather on community, service, and educating people on what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It’s definitely a Bible-based church, not some New Age self-help center like some people think, and people there are the real deal. I’ve truly been challenged to change the way I think about things and live my life. I’ve also managed to find really good friends there, something I didn’t think would be very easy at a megachurch. I’ve learned A LOT as well. Before I came to Crossroads, I didn’t really understand what it meant when people said “Jesus died for your sins” and things like that. I get it now and I’m very grateful I found Crossroads.
Please take all this information with a grain of salt as websites are not always up-to-date and I’m not actually visiting or talking with people to get this information. I compiled it primarily through Outreach Magazine’s 2014 “Largest Churches in America” list and added a few churches I knew were missing, like Lakewood (probably because they didn’t fill out Outreach’s survey), and googled around for other lists. The attendance totals for a few may be from a different year and it’s also hard to compare a church if they list membership instead of attendance, because that’s not the same thing. So the bottom line is that this list is not perfect and could be missing a couple churches and the order could be slightly off. And when reading my notes, keep in mind that no churches are perfect, they all have flaws as they are being ran by flawed people.
Getting Kreative
Click to enlarge.
In a previous post, I talked about how common names today are not as popular as the popular names decades ago. Names like Mary, John, James and Linda were huge during their prime time and could account for as high as 8% of all names that year. Popular names today often only account for 1-3% of all baby names. The chart above shows the distinct number of baby names given out each year since 1880*. If you go to this post, you can see how many babies were born each year for reference. About the same number of babies were born in 1961 and 2013, so obviously from the above graph you can see that there are way more names given out these days- about triple the number between the 1950s and 2000s despite there not being more babies born. Parents want their kids to have more unique names, either by picking something they’ve never heard before or coming up with a new spelling. Like the name Ashley? Why not go with Ashleigh so they can stand out? People started doing things like substituting “ie” for “y” in names like Kellie, Bailie, and Haylie. The letters “ae” also work instead of “a” or “ay” like in Caeden and Kaelyn. I could go on and on…
It’s also interesting to note how the line goes downward in the last couple years. Did we hit a peak? I think there started to be a lot of talk and articles out there about goofy baby names and people started poking fun at them, making parents more cautious.
*Source is the Social Security Administration and only names that occur at least 5 times a year per gender are included in the data set.
Keeping up with the Kardashians’ Names
The Kardashians (and Jenners) have been one of the most famous families in recent years thanks to their reality show that premiered in 2007, so it was fun to run this graph above and see how they have influenced the public in baby names. A few takeaways:
- Khloe and Mason certainly shot up after they made their entrance into reality television but then the trend quickly reversed and their numbers started dropping. I feel like this is common- people are introduced to a more unique name on TV, they have a baby a few months later and name their kid that having no idea or way of knowing if parents around the country are doing the same thing. Then, once the public realizes how popular the name is (or the celebrity becomes even more famous), they ditch it.
- Brody was on its way up but started going downhill after Bruce Jenner’s son Brody Jenner started making appearances. Apparently people didn’t like what they saw??
- I originally had Kimberly in this graph (for Kim, of course) but it was so popular in the 50s-70s that it made it hard to see the details on the lesser used names like Penelope, so I took it out. Plus it didn’t appear that Kim Kardashian had any affect on it.
- Penelope clearly rose in popularity and I’m curious to see her numbers for 2014. Penelope (or “P” as I’ve heard her called on the show) is Kourtney’s second child and she recently had a 3rd child, a son she named Reign, so I’d also like to check that one out on future name lists.
Stay tuned for a future post on the Teen Mom gals and their kids- they made quite an impact. Let’s just say teachers should expect to see some Bentley’s in their classes soon.
Cincinnati School Rankings
Ok, this might only interest my few Cincinnati readers (or maybe just me), but I really wanted to get some stats on the schools here. I grew up in Cincinnati, so I find it interesting to compare and contrast different schools. As an athlete, we played against many schools in this list- we got our ass kicked by the rich suburban schools (Mason, Anderson, Turpin), we beat up on the little rural schools (Batavia, Western Brown, etc) and marveled at the large new schools like Lakota West and Mason (they had a fireplace in the lobby!). The schools in parentheses at the end of each list were added because I know certain readers would want to know where their alma mater or school they teach at ranks.
There were 109 high schools that I found to be in the greater Cincinnati area- this includes Hamilton, Warren, Butler, Clermont, Brown, and Clinton counties in Ohio, and Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties in Kentucky. I removed online, adult and juvenile detention schools from the list (FYI the largest school in my entire database is the Ohio Virtual Academy with 11,640 students in grades Kindergarten-12th). Ohio has on average 637 students per high school- for comparison, Florida has 1513 and California has 1416. Ohio ranks 33rd and Kentucky is 21st in average high school size.
Largest High Schools:
1. Mason, Mason OH, 3246 students (largest in state of Ohio)
2. Oak Hills, Cincinnati, 2537 students
3. Lakota East, Liberty Township OH, 2522 students
4. Lakota West, West Chester OH, 2475 students
5. Fairfield, Fairfield OH, 2079 students (Grades 10-12)
6. Colerain, Cincinnati, 1903 students
7. Hamilton, Hamilton OH, 1880 students (Grades 10-12)
8. Milford, Milford OH, 1809 students
9. Sycamore, Cincinnati, 1763 students
10. Middletown, Middletown OH, 1691 students
(Anderson is 22nd, Glen Este is 23rd, Amelia is 26th with 1080 students, and Northwest is 31st with 970)
Smallest High Schools (all in Cincy unless noted):
1. East End Community Heritage School, 24
2. Accelerated Achievement Academy of East Cincinnati, 33
3. Leadership Academy of Mathematics & Science of Cincinnati, 34
4. Arlington Heights Academy, 34
5. Summit Academy Secondary School, Middletown OH, 51
20 Largest U.S. High Schools
I downloaded public school data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for the 2011-2012 school year. I uploaded all 99,000+ schools it had in its database and hope to do the private schools in the future. Below are the top 20 largest high schools.* I did do some manual sanitizing of the list to remove online schools and any schools with multiple campuses (such as Noble Street Charter High in Chicago which has 10+ extension campuses).
Some things I noted while compiling this list:
- Some of them are in dense, urban areas but they always seem to make room for a football field and track
- Most are located in California (mostly LA), Chicago, Texas, and New York City. There’s also one in Indiana, two in Florida, and one in Massachusetts.
- They offer such a wide variety of programs, electives, activities, and sports.
- A couple of these schools separate out the freshman (and possibly the 10th grade as well) into a separate building that is nearby
- Unsure about some of the free/reduced lunch percentages, in particular for the California schools. They just seemed a little low after looking at the surrounding area, but I could be wrong.
- The national average for students receiving free or reduced lunch is about 48% for 2011-2012
| School Name | City | State | Students | Type | Free/ Reduced Lunch | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BROOKLYN TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL | BROOKLYN | NY | 5323 | 71% | Very urban, highly selective, at least 9 stories at the tallest point. Has 3100 seat auditorium. Students choose a major much like what you do at college. | |
| 2 | PARAMOUNT HIGH | PARAMOUNT | CA | 5015 | 3.7% | Has a Freshman campus right behind it | |
| 3 | POLYTECHNIC HIGH | LONG BEACH | CA | 4745 | Magnet | N/A | 2nd oldest high school in L.A. |
| 4 | NORTH SHORE SENIOR HIGH | HOUSTON | TX | 4607 | 67.0% | Looks like a mall to me | |
| 5 | CARMEL HIGH SCHOOL | CARMEL | IN | 4555 | 9.1% | Has 14 tennis courts | |
| 6 | WARREN TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL | GURNEE | IL | 4442 | 14.2% | Split amongst two campuses for 11th/12th and 9th/10th | |
| 7 | LANE TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL | CHICAGO | IL | 4330 | Magnet | 60.9% | North side of Chicago, just like the other Chicago schools in this list |
| 8 | WAUKEGAN HIGH SCHOOL | WAUKEGAN | IL | 4293 | 66.5% | North of Chicago, near Warren Township High | |
| 9 | BELL SENIOR HIGH | BELL | CA | 4290 | 7.8% | 98% Hispanic | |
| 10 | SKYLINE H S | DALLAS | TX | 4289 | Magnet | 79.6% | First high school in US to offer a magnet program to train students in certain careers. Goal was not to be a vocational school for low achieving students, but to train “superior students” |
| 11 | FORT HAMILTON HIGH SCHOOL | BROOKLYN | NY | 4261 | 60.7% | The football field has patches of dirt on it because they have two baseball fields overlapping (space is a premium in NYC!) | |
| 12 | DOWNEY HIGH | DOWNEY | CA | 4255 | 4.8% | Located just 3 miles from Paramount High, the #1 school and 5 miles from Bell (#8) | |
| 13 | JOHN A. FERGUSON SENIOR HIGH | MIAMI | FL | 4245 | Magnet | 57.4% | Variety of programs in areas like Game/Animation Programming, First Responder, Veterinarian Assisting, Industrial Biotechnology, Hospitality & Tourism, IB program |
| 14 | GRANADA HILLS CHARTER HIGH | GRANADA HILLS | CA | 4201 | Charter/ Magnet | 23.8% | Regular school turned into charter school |
| 15 | DEWITT CLINTON HIGH SCHOOL | BRONX | NY | 4195 | 73.7% | In 2010, was declared the most dangerous school in NYC with 252 violent or disruptive incidents and 33 weapons seized, mostly via the metal detectors at entrances | |
| 16 | CYPRESS BAY HIGH SCHOOL | WESTON | FL | 4192 | 15.8% | Satellite images of the surrounding area are really cool- very planned out, suburban community | |
| 17 | FRANCIS LEWIS HIGH SCHOOL | FRESH MEADOWS | NY | 4154 | 68.8% | Located in the Bronx | |
| 18 | WILSON HIGH | LONG BEACH | CA | 4148 | Magnet | 9.5% | Very diverse, aka Wilson Classical High. Have something called the “Wilson Male Academy” to improve graduation rates of males and encourage/prepare them for college or other careers. |
| 19 | BROCKTON HIGH | BROCKTON | MA | 4135 | 71.2% | School has been on the upswing since very dismall performances hitting a low around 2000 | |
| 20 | JAMES LOGAN HIGH | UNION CITY | CA | 4133 | 0.1% | Regular day runs from 7:16 to 4:26! | |
| 21 | THE WOODLANDS H S | THE WOODLANDS | TX | 4122 | 4.3% | Cool circular building design, looks like they may have a separate 9th grade campus. Have a “Future Homemakers of America” club |
*Okay, there are really 21 because I accidentally forgot one and didn’t bother dropping The Woodlands off the list.
Continue reading
Kelly Loves Data 