By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
SmartData CollectiveSmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
  • Analytics
    AnalyticsShow More
    data-driven white label SEO
    Does Data Mining Really Help with White Label SEO?
    7 Min Read
    marketing analytics for hardware vendors
    IT Hardware Startups Turn to Data Analytics for Market Research
    9 Min Read
    big data and digital signage
    The Power of Big Data and Analytics in Digital Signage
    5 Min Read
    data analytics investing
    Data Analytics Boosts ROI of Investment Trusts
    9 Min Read
    football data collection and analytics
    Unleashing Victory: How Data Collection Is Revolutionizing Football Performance Analysis!
    4 Min Read
  • Big Data
  • BI
  • Exclusive
  • IT
  • Marketing
  • Software
Search
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Exploratory Analysis with Excel
Share
Notification Show More
Aa
SmartData CollectiveSmartData Collective
Aa
Search
  • About
  • Help
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
SmartData Collective > Big Data > Exploratory Analysis with Excel
Big Data

Exploratory Analysis with Excel

Alex.Matthew
Last updated: 2015/04/16 at 5:06 AM
Alex.Matthew
5 Min Read
SHARE

When it comes to data science, we often find that people first start out learning using Microsoft Excel.  Inevitably, as students progress, Excel starts to appear quaint as they transition to more powerful systems like R or Python. After a while, however, a lot of people end up coming back and realizing that maybe Excel isn’t so bad after all. 

When it comes to data science, we often find that people first start out learning using Microsoft Excel.  Inevitably, as students progress, Excel starts to appear quaint as they transition to more powerful systems like R or Python. After a while, however, a lot of people end up coming back and realizing that maybe Excel isn’t so bad after all. 

Although data scientists sometimes look down their nose at Excel, we’ve put together a tutorial, along with data scientist David Taylor, that shows that you can do a suprising amount of complex analysis just using basic Excel fucntions. 

We set out to to prove this by walking folks through an analysis of baby names from California based on the United States Social Security Baby Names Database. The Social Security database, which goes back to 1880, has some weird and wonderful anomalies.

More Read

big data and IP laws

Big Data & AI In Collision Course With IP Laws – A Complete Guide

Upskilling for Emerging Industries Affected by Data Science
Data Security Unveiled: Protecting Your Information in a Connected World
Green Data Centers Make Data-Driven Entities More Sustainable
NIST 800-171 Safeguards Help Non-Federal Networks Handling CUI

For example, David uncovered an interesting (and bizarre) trend of boys’ first names ending in the letter “n” during the latter half of the 20th century.  This is reflected in the provided GIF, which also covers the tragic rise and fall of the letter “d.”  “N”s truly meteoric ascent is one of many fun, and telling, insights that can uncovered through applying some simple Excel functions to a large data set. 

The rise of the letter "n" in boys' last names.

Also, if you explore the names, you’ll notice a trend that impacts girls names far more than boys: a quick rise from obscurity to popularity, then as the name becomes too trendy, a descent to obscurity again.  With boys, you generally see more steady patterns (like the letter “n” at the end of names). Look up names like Mason, Ethan and Jayden, you’ll see them all rise from obscurity to prominence in the 2000s, and many of them are just starting to dip again as of 2013.

Did you know that babies only started routinely having social security numbers starting in 1986? You can see this in the data too. For example, a baby would be much more likely to have the name “Peter” on his official documents than the nickname “Pete”. But if, when a young man or older filled out a tax return or applied for Social Security, he would be more likely to use the name he went by in day-to-day life, which might be a nickname he’d been called since he was a boy.

Finally, as one would expect from anecdotal experience, there is more diversity in names now than there was fifty years ago. In addition, female names are more diverse than male names. Perhaps parents want their girls to stand out more? The changes in diversity track pretty closely between the sexes. This suggests that the difference is due to something intrinsic to the difference between girls’ and boys’ names, not momentary trends. Perhaps the explanation is simple: there is more diversity in girls’ names because there are more spelling variations in girls’ names, like ‘Ann’ and ‘Anne’ and ‘Anna’.

All of these insights were uncovered using intermediate Excel functions like pivot tables, pivot charts, ratios, and filters. We hope this tutorial will help beginners (and experienced data scientists alike) learn some basic steps to take when they first confront a huge chunk of data and want to do some exploratory analysis.  

Alex.Matthew April 16, 2015 April 16, 2015
Share This Article
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn
Share

Follow us on Facebook

Latest News

big data and IP laws
Big Data & AI In Collision Course With IP Laws – A Complete Guide
Big Data
ai in marketing
4 Ways AI Can Enhance Your Marketing Strategies
Marketing
sobm for ai-driven cybersecurity
Software Bill of Materials is Crucial for AI-Driven Cybersecurity
Security
IT budgeting for data-driven companies
IT Budgeting Practices for Data-Driven Companies
IT

Stay Connected

1.2k Followers Like
33.7k Followers Follow
222 Followers Pin

You Might also Like

big data and IP laws
Big Data

Big Data & AI In Collision Course With IP Laws – A Complete Guide

5 Min Read
data science upskilling
Big Data

Upskilling for Emerging Industries Affected by Data Science

10 Min Read
data security unveiled
Security

Data Security Unveiled: Protecting Your Information in a Connected World

8 Min Read
green data center
Big Data

Green Data Centers Make Data-Driven Entities More Sustainable

12 Min Read

SmartData Collective is one of the largest & trusted community covering technical content about Big Data, BI, Cloud, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, IoT & more.

AI chatbots
AI Chatbots Can Help Retailers Convert Live Broadcast Viewers into Sales!
Chatbots
data-driven web design
5 Great Tips for Using Data Analytics for Website UX
Big Data

Quick Link

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Follow US
© 2008-23 SmartData Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Go to mobile version
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?