Common writings of baby names in Japan, 1989–2003: Explanation of survey data

Previous research on Japanese names has analyzed the surveys on baby names conducted by Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Company. The company displayed the yearly top 10 common writings of baby names between 1989 and 2003. However, it was unclear how the surveys for those 15 years were conducted. The data are necessary to evaluate the usableness of the surveys and conduct empirical research. Therefore, I asked the company for further data about the surveys. The methods of the surveys were consistent not only between 1989 and 2003, but also consistent with those between 2004 and 2018. The analyses on the annual sample sizes by gender showed that the surveys between 1989 and 2003 are comparable to the surveys between 2004 and 2018. The company is unable to access the raw data of these surveys, which makes it impossible to provide results other than the top 10 most common writings.