Teachers notice it the most.

Popular names can be confusing when groups of students in a classroom share the same one.

Chloe, Bailey, Claire and Crystal are the next big names to hit elementary schools in the U.S. in growing numbers, according to student research at The University of Toledo.

“We wanted to explore which names appear together over time, and the results are quite interesting,” Ram Mukherjee, a graduate student studying statistics and working as a teaching assistant at UT, said.

Ram Mukherjee, left, analyzed the popularity of names for newborn girls, a project supervised by Dr. Tian Chen, assistant professor of statistics.

After struggling to hand back homework assignments to college classes with a lot of students named Emily, Abigail and Christina, a group of UT graduate students analyzed underlying data structures to understand reasons behind popular clusters of first names for newborn girls in the U.S. from 1880 to 2004.

The team chose to work with girls only for its baby name research because there are more options. Out of 104,110 unique names, 64,911 are female and 39,119 are male.

“For example, the cluster of Emily, Abigail, Christina, Sarah, Nicole, Rachel and Megan grew steadily in the 1980s and peaked in the 1990s for newborns, which explains the reason why we see so many in college or the workforce now,” Mukherjee said.

Emma, Ella, Claire, Anna and Kathryn trended together in the 1930s and rose again together in the 1990s. Elizabeth and Kelly were popular in the 1920s and began to surge again in the 1970s.

Dr. Tian Chen’s newborn son, Daniel.

Dr. Tian Chen, assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, supervised the project. Chen gave birth two weeks ago to a boy she named Daniel. Chen chose the name Chloe for her daughter two years ago.

“Some names skyrocket under the influence of pop culture – like Elsa from the Disney movie ‘Frozen’ – and then decline as everyone on the playground starts answering to the same name,” Chen said. “Some names reflect similar preferences of people. Some names become popular because they sound similar to a previous trend, like Chloe, Claire and Katie.”

Chen said she chose the name Daniel for her newborn son because “it sounds beautiful and currently is declining as a trend, meaning it might not be overused anymore.”

Chloe, Claire, Emma, Grace, Ella, Bailey and Mia are in a cluster riding a current wave.

“Emma, Ella and Grace experienced some fame about 100 years ago, then went silent and suddenly peaked after 2000,” Mukherjee said. “However, Chloe and Bailey are the newbies. They are Generation(Y), who are still small and about to enter school or have recently started school.”

Dorothy, Virginia, Betty, Margaret, Anna, Evelyn, Helen and Shirley started to rise in the 1880s and experienced a baby boom in the 1920s and 1930s. Anna and Evelyn recently experienced small resurgences.

The names Barbara, Linda, Mary and Patricia never go out of style.

“They are popular at all times for new parents, but were especially hot in the late 1940s and the 1950s,” Mukherjee said.

Mothers most commonly named their newborns Lisa, Amy, Laura or Jennifer in the 1970s.

In the 1950s, Carol, Debra and Sharon topped the charts.

However, names like Diana and Joan have had variability over the years. Diana was popular for newborns in the 1950s, decreased for a while and then surged in the 1990s.

“Princess Diana’s influence, no doubt,” Chen said.

Of the most unique names during the 124-year span, the highest frequency occurred for Latory and Massa, which was no more than 100 newborns.

The team’s research continues. The next step is to predict future trends.

“If new parents turn back to tradition, the names of the 1970s or maybe even more from the 1920s could make a comeback,” Mukherjee said. “Or more expecting parents could turn to the less common and more one-of-a-kind route. We are working on that right now.”

“Morality and the Election: Why Liberals and Conservatives Can’t Understand Each Other” will be the topic of the Center for Religious Understanding’s Annual Murray/Bacik Lecture in Catholic Studies at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, in the Center for Performing Arts Recital Hall.

Feldmeier

Dr. Peter Feldmeier, who will give the lecture, is the Murray/Bacik Endowed Professor of Catholic Studies, a position he has held for the last five years at The University of Toledo.

“This lecture is important because of its timeliness as it comes the week before the election,” Feldmeier said. “It deals with how one comes to make moral decisions and how the moral framework regarding politics works with that process.”

He said one thing he hopes the community takes away is a better understanding of the moral principles people draw on to make political assessments.

“Much of our moral intuitions are just that, intuitions. We rely more on our emotional lives and uncritically assess moral values to either confirm or reject political philosophies, policies and candidates. Our rational lives end up working more to justify our already determined conclusions,” Feldmeier said.

“Breaking down how and why this is the case helps us toward better self-understanding. It also helps us to understand the political other. Both liberals and conservatives are often sure that they vote morally, and they cannot see how the political other could ever vote differently and still be moral. It turns out that they are drawing on different moral foundations or at least weighing them differently.”

The lecture is free, but tickets are required; RSVP at cfru.eventbrite.com.

Free parking is available in lots 12 (near the Law Center) and 12E (near the Center for the Performing Arts).

Chronic kidney disease affects nearly 25 percent of the adult population in the United States. It is closely associated with cardiovascular disease and can lead to a patient requiring dialysis or kidney transplant.

Dr. Steven Haller, Dr. David Kennedy and
Dr. Jiang Tian

Researchers at The University of Toledo are researching the connection between the kidney and heart in an effort to understand the molecular mechanisms, which can help develop new treatments to improve patient outcomes.

A recent study entitled, “Attenuation of Na/K-ATPase Mediated Oxidant Amplification with pNaKtide Ameliorates Experimental Uremic Cardiomyopathy,” was published in “Scientific Reports” earlier this month.

UT researchers, in collaboration with Marshall University and New York Medical College, identified a peptide that could reduce kidney disease related cardiac fibrosis in mice, which could potentially lead to the development of new treatment options for patients diagnosed with kidney disease.

“We know patients with kidney disease often develop cardiac fibrosis, which is a condition where their heart tissue becomes damaged and scarred,” said Jiang Tian, associate professor of medicine and lead co-author of the study. “Cardiac fibrosis was previously thought to be untreatable, but this new discovery shows promise for reversing or preventing the condition.”

The research builds upon pioneering work by co-author Dr. Zijian Xie, director of the Marshall Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, who discovered a new function of the Na/K-ATPase during his tenure at UT. Xie found that the Na/K-ATPase can mediate cell signaling in addition to its role in regulating the potassium and sodium level in each cell of the body.

The research team subsequently learned that dysfunction of kidneys signals the body to produce steroids that bind to the Na/K-ATPase, but that a long term “off-target” effect of this causes scarring to develop in the heart.

“We discovered that these sodium-potassium pumps don’t just move sodium and potassium around, but they are multitasking proteins that are involved in other functions as well,” said David Kennedy, assistant professor of medicine and co-author of the study. “It’s like finding out your car is a spaceship and you didn’t even know it.”

When the team introduced a peptide called pNaKtide in a mouse model with kidney disease, the associated cardiac fibrosis was reduced.

“We are excited about these findings and will further explore the possibility to use this peptide as a therapeutic treatment for cardiac fibrosis,” Tian said.

In a related UT study, Dr. Steven Haller, assistant professor of medicine discovered use of the immunosuppressant drug Rapamycin also helps in reducing cardiac fibrosis in animal models with kidney disease.

“Given that we now know Na/K-ATPase signaling is known to initiate events that leads to cardiac fibrosis, we can look at ways to interrupt this sequence,” he said. “Rapamycin inhibits an enzyme implicated in the progression of many different forms of kidney disease and we now know it also regulates a pro-fibrotic steroid which binds the Na/K-ATPase and causes fibrosis.”

The study, “Rapamycin Attenuates Cardiac Fibrosis in Experimental Uremic Cardiomyopathy by Reducing Marinobufagenin Levels and Inhibiting Downstream Pro-Fibrotic Signaling,” was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.