Newsflash: Your baby’s sweet new name probably isn’t new. recently, WordFinder dig into Social Security Administration data to examine names by year, generation, and region to determine the most popular baby names over the past decades. Here’s what they found.
Amelia’s rising popularity
This name started gaining traction in 1990, and has risen 142,925% since then. If you’re old enough to remember Amelia Bedelia, you understand why. That big number just means there could be a whole gaggle of Amelias in your kid’s class. Similar vibed names, Taylor and Katherine, fell in popularity by 99%, they report.
The most unique state
If you’re in Hawaii, Wyoming or Vermont, you’re more likely to use an “unusual name,” the report showed. Similarly, Mississippi has the most fictional names.
The most popular baby names across generations
Sure, we can check out Nameberry’s predictions for this year, and they’ve done a great job tracking the last few years. But, if you go back, this study points to additional girls’ names beyond Amelia as steadily and rapidly growing in popularity over three decades, including:
- Naomi
- Sadie
- Leilani
- Audrey
- Ariana
- Eliza
- Madison
- Grace
- Aubrey
For boys, the following names have been on the rise for three decades:
- Noah
- Beau
- Mason
- Jack
- Jeremiah
- Isaiah
- Arthur
- Weston
- Shadow
- Parker
Once popular baby names come down through the generations
Some names don’t stand the test of time. Although naming a child is a deeply personal decision, some people choose to track trends to see which names will remain popular for years to come. For those keeping an eye on name drops, the following data may be of interest. Here are names that have seen decades of decline in popularity:
- Laura
- Amy
- Alexandra
- Ashley
- Brooke
- Kylie
- Rachel
- Kiara
And for men:
- Blake
- Patrick
- Tyler
- Manuel
- Peter
- Louis
- Zachary
- Nathaniel
- Xavier
- Nicholas
Generations have different names
As expected, Gen Zers don’t follow the naming patterns of Boomers or Millennials. Boomers’ top names (for themselves, not for their children) are Mary and Linda, James and Michael; Millennials’ top names are Jessica and Ashley, Michael and Christopher; Gen Z’s top names are Emily and Emma, Jacob and Michael. Michael is the only name among all generational choices to be in the top two names of all time.
To learn more about naming trends across generations, check out your own region here.
