---
license: mit
tags:
- names
- gender-classification
- new-mexico
---

# NM Names Clean

Engineered dataset of New Mexico baby names (1910–2021), derived from
`bigquery-public-data.usa_names.usa_1910_current`, filtered to New Mexico.

## Columns
- `name` — the given name
- `gender` — M or F
- `total` — total recorded births for that name+gender in NM (1910–2021)
- `name_length` — number of letters (engineered feature)
- `last_letter` — final letter, lowercased (engineered feature; strong gender signal)

## Purpose
Built for a Gaussian Naive Bayes classification task: predict gender from
name features. GNB reached ~0.70 accuracy vs. a ~0.61 majority-class baseline,
showing the last letter carries real gender signal.

## Caveat
The source dataset only records names with 5+ occurrences per state-year
(privacy threshold), so rare names are excluded. Counts are *recorded*
births, not true totals.