Happy Blogger-ver-sary!!

Baby Name Pondering Turns One!
photo courtesy of lynnquinlivan.com

I've been so busy at work this week that I nearly didn't notice that Baby Name Pondering is now a year old!

I was debating whether to do a post like this, but have to admit that I found it really interesting to read these on other blogs when I was starting out - so here's a few fun facts from my first year.


Number of page views to date

Just over 67,000!

A couple of months in I set myself a goal of 60,000 page views by August 2013. At the time I thought that would be very difficult, so I was pretty happy to reach that number last month.


Most popular posts

In case you've been wondering, the top five posts on the right side of the page are always based on the past week. I thought you'd see more variety that way! In terms of all time numbers, from five to one my most popular posts are:

5. Snow. This has been viewed 1493 times, possibly helped by Google hits for people looking for pictures of "beautiful snow" ☺

4. Raviva - I knew I couldn't be the only one who noticed this fantastic name from MTV's 'Underemployed' - Raviva has had 1923 hits to date. Thanks to those of you who added comments to help figure out the roots of this cool but rare name.

3. Forrest - As much as I love this name, I was still surprised that it has consistently gotten as many views as it has - 2523 so far.

2. Spotted - Denver Anton and Zelda Gypsy Jane - I knew these two names were winners when I saw them in the paper! This page has gotten 3475 views, but the best part? A comment from Zelda's mum explaining how they chose her name. Pretty special, as all too often we see a fantastic name in the birth announcements but never get to find out how the parents decided on it, or let them know how much we love it ☺

1. Ted's Trashy Names List - which you may have guessed, because it tops the weekly most popular posts almost all the time. Seems we can't help but be fascinated by which names are considered "trashy", and this list comes straight from a scene in the brash movie 'Ted'. The movie stars Mila Kunis and Mark Wahlberg, and if you're a fan of Seth McFarlane (writer of 'Family Guy' and 'American Dad') you'll love this movie. My favourite scene has to be Giovanni Ribisi grinding it to the 80's Tiffany classic 'I Think We're Alone Now'.
But I digress. With 6650 page views, this one is a clear favourite.


Top referring sites

By far I get the most traffic from Google, but after Google most of my referrals come from:

Appellation Mountain - Thanks Abby! Abby has sent a lot of traffic my way, not just from mentions in her great weekly Sunday Summaries (I still remember my excitement the first time she mentioned me!), but also from her Facebook page and mentions in her Nameberry Nine Posts on Mondays. Speaking of which....

Nameberry - has been my next biggest source, sometimes from Abby's posts, sometimes from my signature when I've posted on the forums. And some from my first guest post there, which appeared just this week ☺

Waltzing More Than Matilda - fellow Aussie name blogger Anna has also been a source of a lot of traffic. She been a great source of encouragement during my first year, and it was so nice of her to want to interview me recently for her blog. Thank you so much Anna!


Thank You!

It's been a real pleasure to join the naming community - we're all in all a pretty friendly bunch. I always thought that my interest in names was just one of my many weird quirks, so it's been great to find that plenty of other people have the same obsession! And thank you to my husband for encouraging me to start Baby Name Pondering, and for reading every one of my posts even though names are not exactly his favourite topic ☺

Finally, I'd like to give a BIG "thank you" to all of my readers for your support in the past year. It's been great to re-connect with my love of writing and I hope to keep writing posts that you find informative and enjoy reading for a while to come!