title: Pandas index column for a dataframe
body: <p>Hi all so I'm trying to work with this set of data that has two columns, one is names and the other is the number of births for each name. What I want to do is import a csv file, perform some basic functions on it such as finding the baby name with the maximum number of births, and then plotting the data in a bar graph. But, when I have an index value for the dataframe, the bar graph prints that as the x axis instead of the names. So I removed the index and now I get all kinds of errors. Below is my code, first the one with the index and then the one without. Thanks in advance. This is really driving me crazy </p>
  
  <pre><code>import pandas as pd
  import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
  import pdb
  import matplotlib as p
  import os
  from pandas import DataFrame
  Location = os.path.join(os.path.sep,'Users', 'Mark\'s Computer','Desktop','projects','data','births1880.csv')
  a = pd.read_csv(Location, index_col = False)
  print(a) #print the dataframe just to see what I'm getting.
  MaxValue = a['Births'].max()
  MaxName = a['Names'][a['Births'] == MaxValue].values
  print(MaxValue, ' ', MaxName)
  a.plot(kind ='bar')
  plt.show()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This code works but spits out a bar graph with the index as the x axis instead of the names?</p>
  
  <pre><code>import pandas as pd
  import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
  import pdb
  import matplotlib as p
  import os
  from pandas import DataFrame
  Location = os.path.join(os.path.sep,'Users', 'Mark\'s Computer','Desktop','projects','data','births1880.csv')
  a = pd.read_csv(Location, index_col = True) #why is setting the index column to true removing it?
  print(a) #print the dataframe just to see what I'm getting.
  MaxValue = a['Births'].max()
  MaxName = a['Names'][a['Births'] == MaxValue].values
  print(MaxValue, ' ', MaxName)
  a.plot(kind ='bar', x='Names', y = 'Births' )
  plt.show()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>edited for solution. </p>