Where Have All the Bobs Gone?

Last Bob in sports? (Photo: Bradjward)

Jon Bois at SB Nation writes about the disappearance of Bobs in sports:

Across the histories of Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, and NCAA football and basketball, there have been a total of 1,884 athletes who primarily went by the name Bob. Not Robert, or Bobby, but Bob.

Of those 1,884 Bobs, Sanders [of the San Diego Chargers] is the only one still playing.

We’ve written regularly about names and how some just go out of fashion. The fact is that “Robert” is still holding its own. From the Social Security Administration’s Names Index:

But “Bob,” as both a nickname and a given name, has fallen out of favor. As the SSA database informs us, “Bob is not in the top 1,000 names for any year of birth in the last 12 years. Please enter another name.” It turns out that Bob as a given name fell out of the top 1,000 back in 1984:

Popularity of the male name Bob

(HT: JCB)