This Ruby script parses the dataset from https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/baby-names-from-social-security-card-applications-data-by-state-and-district-of- to find the top name for each sex/year/state permutation. The result is a .csv with a row for each year/sex/top name combination. Be sure to replace the path on line 7 with your local path.

gistfile1.rb

require 'csv'

year = 1910

CSV.open("stateNamesParsed.csv", "ab") do |csv|

	Dir.glob('PATH/*.TXT') do |file|
	next if file == '.' or file == '..'
		File.open(file).readlines.each do |line|
			array = line.split(',')
			if array[2] == year.to_s
				csv << [array[0], array[1], array[2], array[3], array[4]]
				if year == 2012
					year = 1910
				else
					year += 1
				end
			end
		end
	end
end