So I found this to be a really interesting question, because yeah, Chuck and Brandon are “default American” names to me.

@BenCotterill Are there Americans actually called Billy-Bob? I mean, apart from the obvious Thornton. Legit question.

@hattom Todd is for sure American though, you’re right on the money there.

@astronomerritt Chad.

@astronomerritt Honestly no idea.

@piglet I forget Americans might actually be CALLED Chad as it’s totally solidified in my head as a meme

@astronomerritt @piglet

Better than being called Central African Republic!

@hattom @astronomerritt interesting that Kayleigh was the example here, since it was pretty high on this list of Irish girls names (though I suspect this list was written for Americans)

@piglet @astronomerritt I work with 2 men named Chad
Also a Chaz

@astronomerritt some names I'd assume the bearer was Irish:
Seamus
Angus
Ciarán
Fergus
Lochlan
Sinead
Róisín

Actually it's interesting. Scanning through lists of irish boys names, I recognize a lot of them but associate them with Ireland. For the girls names, I either recognize none of them, or they're all like Kate, Sophie, Lilly, Amy, which I consider so widespread to be generic. Nothing in-between where it's a name I recognize but wouldn't expect to find much outside of Ireland.

@Artemis201 I would immediately assume an Angus to be Scottish and a Lachlan or Lochlan to 100% be Australian!

@astronomerritt this reminds me of the Kevin name shame in France..

@croptopjin Oooh I heard that was a thing in Germany! They call it Kevinismus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevinismus

@astronomerritt I wonder if that's a function of the names' actual spread, or my perception?
Does Hollywood/media only pick traditional names when it's a boy?
Are names like "Kate" just so popular that everyone uses them?

@astronomerritt oh yeah, I guess Angus is more Scottish. I just scanned through a list of Irish baby boy names and picked out the ones I was familiar with.
Lochlan I've never heard as Australian. But also I don't know a ton of names I tie to Australia

@skribe @astronomerritt poor wee bugger, hope he was ale to change it.

@Artemis201 I mean, Ireland basically uses very similar names to the UK but with a lot of Irish names thrown in.

There’s some names I’d consider default Irish in comparison to the UK though, like John Paul, Gerard, most female variations of male names like Geraldine or Bernadette, Maurice pronounced “Morris”, double-barrelled girls’ names in general.

@Artemis201 Apparently it’s a super popular name in Australia: it’s Scottish in origin but idk, just seems to have caught on over there

@Artemis201 Ah no, specifically John Paul together! Boys named after the Pope, as you’d know yourself. The hyphen is more or less optional, most of the John Pauls I’ve known haven’t had the hyphen.

I’d say most of the names you’ve listed are really common in the mainland UK too, so not seen as specifically Catholic there. Things can be different up here in NI… as usual

@pthime First of all, this is wonderful, thank you for your contributions to the totally legitimate field of Global Name Science. (Actually, that probably is a legit field…) Glad to be vindicated when it comes to Brandon.

As you’re likely aware, the obvious issue with Chuck is that it’s a nickname so most US Chucks are of course Charleses. And it’s absolutely wild that there’s apparently so many Chads in Chad?? Is that really a thing? I need to look at where this data comes from, actually.

Gonna mess with this myself for a bit…

@pthime @astronomerritt But the "most American" name to people outside the USA is a matter of familiarity and social perception, not statistics (or at least, that's what I was thinking in my original question). I wouldn't assume a "Michael" was from the USA, but "Chuck" sure sounds that way to me too. (Maybe because of Chuck Norris, I don't know.)