New interactive map shows which baby names are popular in all of Toronto’s neighbourhoods

What’s in a name? Apparently, quite a bit.

A new interactive map by Toronto’s master of geo-data, Patrick Cain—he’s the guy who created the map showing a suburban-downtown division after Rob Ford’s election—reveals the top baby names in most postal codes in the GTA. The names speak to the cultural and religious enclaves that make up the city. The most popular boy’s name around Forest Hill (postal codes starting with M4V)? William. At McCowan and Steeles (L36)? Muhammad. In Parkdale (M6K)? Tenzin—a traditional name for Buddhists and Tibetans, as it was the name of the first Dalai Lama. Wildly popular names for girls that seem to know no postal boundaries: Sophia, Chloe, Emma, Ava and Emily.

The map is available over at OpenFile, along with a detailed description of the methodology behind the research.

At OpenFile’s request, Ontario’s Registrar General crunched five years of birth registration data, covering 823,000 children born between 2005 and mid-December 2009. The data provided shows the top five baby names for boys and girls by postal forward sortation area…

Girls named Gurleen are strongly concentrated in three neighbourhoods in Brampton. The name Chloe is most popular in Markham, with some across Highway 404 in Richmond Hill, and south of Steeles into northwest Scarborough. Fatima is found most in mid-Scarborough north of Lawrence, in Thorncliffe Park, and in Malton. Isabella appears in a strong belt running north through the west end of the old city and up into Woodbridge, Richmond Hill, and Bolton. Muhammads have three distinct clusters: east from Flemingdon Park along the east Danforth, then northeast through Scarborough, with a pocket in Markham; Malton and Rexdale; and a strip of Mississauga between Burnhamthorpe and the QEW.

Cain, who was featured on a Guardian blog about Canada’s open data journalism, has also produced baby name maps for Ottawa and Hamilton-Niagara.