Monday, May 21, 2012

Most Popular Baby Names

Last week, the Social Security Administration released the most popular baby names of 2011. Jacob, Mason, William, Jayden & Noah earned the top five spots for most popular boys names while Sophia, Isabella, Emma, Olivia and Ava were the top five female names. Basically, every girl in kindergarten in five years will have a first name that ends in “A.”

You can easily spend hours searching for names on the Social Security website. While I will neither confirm nor deny that I spent hours searching names on the Social Security website, I will share some observations for you.

- Mitt and Barack are not in the top 1000 names for any year of birth in 2011 or in the last 12 years.

- While Khloe was the 49th most popular girls name, Lamar was only the 721st most popular boys name. Apparently, the E! Network made the right decision in not naming the show Lamar & Khloe.

- Shockingly, Timothy and Tebow did not fall into the top 100 most popular male or female names in 2011 in Colorado.

- While Brooklyn finished #21 for girls, Staten Island was not in the top 1000 male or female names.

- In 2006, Sean finished as the 68th most popular boys name. This went to #76 in 2007; #83 in 2008; #97 in 2009; #102 in 2010; and #125 in 2011. I wonder if this blog is related to the downward trend of Sean across the country.

- Hines was not in the top 1000 names in 2011. I guess winning Dancing with the Stars means nothing in terms of name popularity.

- Troy finished as the 244th most popular boys name in 2011. I feel like this number is much higher in Western Pennsylvania.

- All you need in Wyoming to reach the top 100 names in 2011 is five girls with the same name. Congrats to the five Wyoming girls named Kinley, Payton, Reagan, Emery & Brylee.

If you’re looking for an activity to start your week, I highly recommend checking out the Social Security website.

3 comments:

Amy said...

I am also a little obsessed with this. The woman that runs this website takes the Social Security data to a whole new level (see the Voyager, as well as the Blog):

http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#

Laurie said...

I spent way too much time on this web site when I was pregnant. It is extremely addicting. My name hasn't been in the top 1000 since 1994!

Sean said...

Amy - I'm definitely going to have fun with the Voyager website. For example, did you know that Sean is the #1 name in Ireland and the #238 name in Norway?

Laurie - Not even the top 1000? Is it because there are different spellings on Laurie?