Stephen Reader
Stephen Reader covers politics for It's a Free Country, WNYC's interactive politics site. He joined the station in 2010 and has also worked for Studio 360, WNYC's Peabody Award-winning show about art, culture, and creativity.
(Julia Furlan)
Of all the conclusions that readers and other media outlets have drawn from our Data News Team’s NYC dogs data dive, the best might be that hipsters like mutts as much of the rest of New York.
Complex magazine zoomed in on “legendary hipster havens Williamsburg and Greenpoint” to find which dogs were most popular amongst hipsters. The neighborhood results didn’t depart much from the citywide numbers: mutts are still No. 1, followed by Yorkies, Chihuahuas, Shih Tzus, and Pit Bulls.
And Milo ties with Max for the most popular name in the zip code they looked at – maybe more hipster dog owners grew up listening to The Descendents?
Elsewhere, The Atlantic noticed that New York dog owners had “an unusual preference, it seems, for the names Princess, Ginger, Lucky, Teddy, Buster and Gizmo.” Belonging to 314 dogs, Gizmo was the 11th-most popular male name, and the second-most popular movie reference name – remember, Gizmo was the furry little Mogwai that, when exposed to water, spawned evil Gremlins in the 1984 film of the same name.
They also pointed out that Brooklyn was the top “Places” dog name by a long shot. We’re not surprised.
Meanwhile, Gothamist took our work a step further, mapping dog complaints in the city by zip code. We knew the most popular places for dog names and breeds; now we know the most popular places to poop and bark, too.
Now it’s your turn. We’re open sourcing our dog data. So if you’ve been curious about how weird the names get, what the least common breeds are, or anything else having to do with New York City dogs, dig through the complete dog license registry and tell us what you find.
Comments [2]
Where is Northern Manhattan (Washington Heights/Inwood) and the Bronx on the map? It is so annoying that these areas are almost never included.
We have 2 dogs, an American Bulldog named Molly and a Victorian Bulldog(euph for mutt, I think) named Vicki. When they roughhouse I call it bulldozing.
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