Samantha… are the statistics accurate?

All through my school years, I was the only Samantha in my class and the only one in my school.  Not until college, did I actually have a friendship with another Samantha… and she went by her middle name of ‘August’.  So I was totally floored when I read on Wikipedia that the proper name ‘Samantha’ ranked among the top 200 names for girls since 1965 and among the top names for girls since 1976. ^{[1^ http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi]}

I have to ask myself, if the statistics are right… then where were they?  I never remember a Samantha A or Samantha B in school… but we did have a Lisa G and a Lisa L… and of course being from the South we had both a Missy S and a Missy W.   So were all of the Samantha’s born during the late 60’s living on the West Coast? the East Coast? above the Mason Dixon line (aka the North)?  Where were they then?

And where are they now?  As an adult, I personally know of one other adult Samantha.  I do know of several under the age of seven… but they are usually Samantha Grace or Samantha Faiths (remember I’m in the South) and I think that is a reaction to the popular Mary Grace – Mary Faith craze that was rampant among parents of Southern girls about six years before.  Then there was the Britney – Brittney name craze and the Katelynn – Caitlin—Kaitlin name craze that was rampant the years before that.  We have two nieces both named Caitlin – Caitlin B and Caitlin C.  But I can’t ever remember a Samantha naming craze.  Can you?  So the question I put before you is this where did all of the ‘Samantha’s go?