US coal production

As coal production has declined, Maverick babies have multiplied, a negative correlation of -0.975 that connects the death of fossil fuels to the birth of bold baby naming with the generational precision of a chart observing one era ending while another begins. The mine closes, the Maverick is born, and both trends measure the same transition from the industrial economy to the identity economy.

Coal production declined from about 1.1 billion tons to under 540 million. Maverick grew to over 4,000 per year. Both eighteen-year trends. Coal declines because renewables and gas are cheaper; Maverick rises because unconventional names are fashionable. The same generational shift that abandoned coal (too old, too dirty) embraced distinctive naming (too boring to be conventional).

Eighteen years of less coal and more Mavericks is a generational handoff: the fuel source of the industrial era declines while the naming convention of the post-industrial era rises, and both trends are driven by the same generation choosing something different from what came before.