The Baby Name Wizard

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Nice new digs here. ;-)
I think it is more about trends and themes in the names (surnames as first names, girls with boys' names, etc.) rather than a specific king and queen. I'm always surprised to see such a low percentage for the Top 10 names, because I feel like more than 1% of the boys I've met are named Aidan, for example.
Can't wait to see the new list.

You know, I was thinking the same thing AJ. While I only know 2 Aidan/Aidens (and one is an 8 year old girl), I noticed during the NCAA basketball tournament this year that there were a crazy number of Tylers. As in, nearly every team had at least one. and according to my copy of BNW, it never reached #1. Maybe Tylers are just athletically inclined or the athletically inclined named their sons Tyler in the late 80s/early 90s?

Hey Another Amy,

I was noticing at my step daughters High School the sheer numbers of Tylers on the football and basketball teams. I am sure the other sports had them too,I just haven't seen the name rosters for them.

Karen D

More than 1% of the boys you meet might be named Aidan--but they're spelling it Aidan/Aiden/Ayden/Aidon/Aeden etc. etc. etc., which all get counted separately for the SS list's purposes. So maybe part of the decline of the top names' statistical popularity is about a broadening of spelling choices--we still like the popular names, but we don't spell them just one way anymore (thus, Madalyn, Katelyn, Emmaleigh...).

Tyler might be one of those names people like to give as a middle name, but use as a first name--ie, "He's Joseph Tyler Davidson, but we're going to call him Tyler." So some of those Tylers wouldn't have shown up in the SS rankings (which only count first names, right?). Maybe call it the Mary Tyler Moore effect? ;)

Tyler's also not a name you'll find so much in Latino families--it doesn't have any cognate in Spanish--which would take a bite out of its use, but not so much of a bite out of its appearance on those team rosters (Latino kids are underrepresented on NCAA basketball teams, I suspect).

I was surprised by the 1% number too, but I figure that has a lot to do with micro trends that give me a biased perception of the averages. For instance, I feel like more than 50% of kids I meet have the same few "neo-yuppie names" (Sam, Lily, Jack, Claire, Julia, William, etc.), but that probably says more about me and the people I know than the national trends. I don't think I've met an Aidan (or any variation thereof) since I was 6, and that Aidan was a girl who was born sometime around 1974. In fact, until I started researching to name an actual baby, I thought it was the coolest name, fairly rare, and was very likely to give it to a boy if I ever had one. Oops. Shows what I know (knew).

I agree with AJ that trends and themes are more important in determining usage than in mere rankings--call the former "functional rankings," if you will.

For example, Emma has a certain "real" ranking according to statistics. But its functional ranking would take into consideration not only alternate spellings but once-distinct names that have been vortexed into Emma's contemporary orbit: Emily, Emmaleigh, Emmeline, Emme, etc. The functional ranking of all of these orbit-names would thus be a lot closer to a theoretical Top 10.

And it's not just sound-alikes but meaning that could be considered in the same orbit. For example, fifteen years ago, I thought of Ruby and Diamond as closer to each other than not. But now, I class Diamond with a different orbit--with the Porsches and Christalles and Cartiers I have met.

I really think patterns and trends are, as AJ suggests, what to look for, not actual rankings, which are necessarily limited and short-sighted in their capacity for insight into a name's real popularity potential.

Nice site!

Easternbetty, the "functional ranking" sounds like a fun project- maybe people who watch/read this site could each take a name and comb through the SSA lists for its permutations and close relatives, and then share the results- problem there is the degree of subjectivity involved in deciding what's in the same "orbit." Well, maybe that thought worked better in my head than outloud...

I have a casual wager on with a couple of friends- two of us are better that Ava will take top place this year, the other two that Emily will continue her reign for another year. Can't wait for the weekend!

betting, not better!!

OK, here's an orbit example: according to my analysis of the 2006 data, there were about 81,000 boys named "something that rhymes with Aidan" (Aidan, Cayden, Brayden, Zayden, Jayden, Hayden, and spelling [per]mutations). This is more than 3 times the number of babies who were named Jacob, the #1 name.

Before I found out my son was going to be a boy, I made a spreadsheet to analyze girls names by copying and pasting data from the SSA website. I cut and pasted the lists, sorted alphabetically, then grouped like names (Caitlyn, Katelyn and all the others, for example) and calculated the totaled. I did this for popular names, classic names and names I was considering, to compare. Unfortunately it was saved on a computer that has since died, so I can't share it, but it is doable.

Looking forward to the newest list! Wonder how many changes there will be...

JDG, I did the same thing! I am just itching to get the new data into my spreadsheet! Wow am I a geek! Glad to be among friends ;).

I haven't done a lot with themes/orbits, other than some rhyming name families ['rhymes with Aidan' (boys), 'rhymes with Kayla' (girls), 'rhymes with Twyla' (girls)], plus Presidential last names (both), and flower/plant names (girls).

My own ds is named Jacob (born 2003), but he is called by an unusual nn (Coby) so in actual practice we rarely come across another Coby. If we regularly called him Jacob, I might be more concerned about the popularity of it.

I think regional differences are soemthing to think about as well. SSA gives us the national trends, but you may not know a single Emma/Jacob/Aidan or whatever where you live, but someone else might know a ton.
Where I live I feel like I know a zillion young Kate/Katie/Katherines and Isabel/Isabella/Isabelles. The young boys that I know seem to be more varied in their names.

I just saw an interesting name. Ashlee Lashee` The longer I l.ook at it the more interesting it gets...

Also a sib set that caught my attention: Byron, Chance, Skylar and Mason.

Jill C., I like your example of an orbit (--aydens). It's a good one.

Quints just born this weekend in Indiana:

Brayden Jamson (m)
Ariel Marie (f)
Addison Catalina (f)
Micah Joe (m)
Gabriella Isabel (f)

The couple explain the name choices at their blog:

http://paulaandjamson.blogspot.com/

I wonder how "small," one could go with demographic/regional differences.
We seem to be in a crazy Maya pocket. I know this name is on the upswing, but it's odd to me that every preschool group we encounter seems to have multiple Mayas. I've wondered for a while whether there is some kind of statistical principle that explains these naming "bubbles".
I don't know if that makes sense at all, but if anyone knows what I'm getting at, feel free to chime in!
Jacob is similar to Emily for me, in that I know very few young ones. When I was teaching I had lots of teenage students named both Emily and Jacob/Jake, but you couldn't prove by me that either of these is still popular. It's certainly a handsome choice, in any case!

I'm pregnant now, and I'm struggling a lot with the issue of popularity of names. How much does it matter? And how much can be measured in by the SS list in terms of its local effect? It's hard for me to decide how much I care, especially for boys, since many of my favorites are very popular.

Sorry for the digression, but I have a question for Coby's mom. I've always loved the name Coby as a nickname for Jacob. But I hesitate because of Kobe Bryant. Granted, not the same name, but do you run into people whose perception of your son's name is based on Bryant?

I think many on this board would tell you that only

you
can decide how much name popularity matters to you. If it would annoy you or you think it would annoy your children to have 4 or 5 children with the same name in the same class, you might want to avoid some of the more popular names. That being said, I think Laura's point with this post is that even the highest ranking names on the most recent social security rankings don't necessarily mean that the name occurs very often in real life due to all the name choices out there and the sheer desire to name one's child something "different," whatever that means.

If it's hard to decide how much you care, then you probably don't care very much. :) Go for the name you love and that you will be happy with long-term.

Completely agree with J&H's mum about Maya, there's a boom going on.

Regarding Maya, there is a popular PBS show with that name.

by the way! I like the site!

I also can't wait for the list to come out! So fun!
I really hope Ava is not at the top. sheesh

Even though Maya/Maia seems a bit old[er] hat to me (I associate it with people in their late teens-twenties), I figured it was experiencing either a renewal or mainstream acceptance when I saw it used in not one, but two television advertisements (two of the only ones I've seen where the actor is given a name, by the way). (I believe it was also the name of a character in the sitcom "Just Shoot Me").

In one ad, the actor was a young girl--not of great interest. But in the other, the actor was a woman in her mid-thirties; this made me sit up and take notice because it seemed to suggest that even stodgy marketing types had deemed this name to be one "normal" enough for a thirtysomething Everywoman (European-American, BTW).

I think someone here mentioned a few months ago that there was a similar phenomenon with one of the medical dramas (Grey's Anatomy?) in which female characters in their 30s and 40s were called by names that are not aligned with their age group, but rather with teens and young ones.

I had a few days at home last week and saw a character on _Days of Our Lives_ (daytime soap) in her early thirties named Ava. To my knowledge, that name would probably have seemed grandmotherly in generation during the early seventies when this actress was born, so I am tempted to think the same factor is at work here.

I definitely find that I rarely run into the top-10 names of either sex IRL. In looking at the top-10 for 2006 and thinking of kids my daughter's age (6 yrs), we know two Ethans, one Christopher, one Matthew, one Daniel, one Emily, one Abigail, one Ava, and one Samantha.

While I know there are many more kids with these names, it seems less obvious than when I was a kid in the 70s when there were many Amys, many Jeffs, many Mikes, etc.

I also agree that trends are typically more interesting than the top-10 (or however many top names you'd want to include). The top names, esp for boys, seem somewhat more static. Even the most dynamic trend may not affect the top-10 (variant spelling being one reason).

Statisticians, demographers, and astronomers will tell you, random space is "lumpy"--in any random distribution over an area there will be places with more and less, for no reason other than chance. It's a fallacy to imagine random means "evenly distributed." So there will always be pockets, not just because local trends are at play, but because random means random--lumps and all.

I agree with the regional "lumpy" effect. There are several names that have been mentioned on the board as becoming over used and I didn't even know one kid with that name yet. I do like that the social security data will show you the top 100 by state. My friend looked at this when she was considering naming her son Ethan. While it was popular overall in the country, it was the number one name in our state. In the end, however, she decided to use the name anyway. My husband grew up always needing to be James D. or a similar variation. His best friend was also named James and they called each other James squared. He didn't care about that and so doesn't think it should matter with our boys. (Of course once you decide it is okay to have two Jameses in the family, it doesn't really matter how many are in the class does there?) I think there was another post that commented about the fact that there does seem to be a difference with popular classic names and popular names that feel like a trend because of large spikes or drops. But I agree that it is a very personal thing and it depends on why you like a name to begin with.

Sushila O'Malley -- Thanks for the reminder about the randomness of random distributions. It always kills me when my iPod -- on shuffle -- keeps shuffling to the same artist. My husband reminds me that even that repetition is part of randomness. I guess it just doesn't seem logical that randomness would be so apparently unrandom at times. Does that make sense?

It does to me Amy- my ipod never seems to pick songs at random. For example, one day, on 'shuffle' it picked nothing but African-American women solo artists, out of an extremely eclectic mix!
I'm not around small children a lot right now, but every single girl I meet seems to be called Lily right now...

I agree with the different spelling being a strong reason the #1 name only accounts for 1% and the other reason being our acceptance and exposure to other cultures being the other. More people are becoming risky with names.

I am in a group called Durham Mommies, and there are 4 Austin's.. but every one of them spells it differently.

I agree that names tend to occur in clumps, or pockets, which is why I think it's also important for parents who are seeking names that will keep their child from being 1 of 5 also look at things like what names are popular in their state or region or amongst others in their peer group/friend group/etc.

I've shared on this board many times that I hated my name (Ashley) growing up, because of it's popularity. I've also said that I've grown to accept it, largely because I encounter fewer Ashley's on a day-to-day basis.

At the time I was born, Ashley was in the 40s on the SSA list. Yet, when a friend from elementary school joined Facebook recently, the first five people to write on her wall were all seperate individuals we went to high school with (including myself), all named Ashley. Clearly, I was born into a pocket of Ashleys, even before the name was popular.

I really like the look of the new website! But I'm surprised to see no link to Nymbler. Also, if the search option could include searching all comments too, that would be very helpful. When my son and wife were looking at names for their expected baby, I was interested in others' impression of one of their contenders, and went through all of Laura's posts and responses, one by one, to gather that data. It took quite a while!

.

Rachel - funny you should ask that. My husband's name is Brian so if I say the names together it definitely brings Kobe Bryant to mind. When Coby was born was around the time that Kobe Bryant was in the news for alleged unsavory behavior, so he seemed to be more on people's minds. I did get asked, "like Kobe Bryant?" somewhat frequently. However, I hardly ever hear that comment anymore - Coby is 4 1/2 now.

The things that I do notice with this name:

1) people tend to spell it with a K (maybe because of Kobe Bryant)
2) people call him Cody or Colby relatively frequently
3) people don't get that it is a nn for Jacob. I rarely even attempt to explain it.

All that being said, I still am really happy with it. We have yet to come across another Coby in our social circle/preschool circle. I also really like the name Jacoby, nn Coby. That seems like it might be more intuitive for people.

Melissa,
In my group called "Durham Babies" (now all three years old) there are two little Liams (out of nine children) and a William. Considering Liam's popularity rank was around 100 the year these kids were born, it does seem unusual. But four Austins! Wow.

C&C's mom, there is at least one other little boy named Coby in the Triangle, and his brother is named Caleb. When you first started posting here I thought you were their mother. I don't know if that Coby is named Jacob, though.

Elizabeth T. - Are the Liams in your group just Liam or are they Williams?

Jill C, great point, as many of the pps made as well. I like the orbit idea, and we can't discount rhymes or even just alt spellings.
A lot of these concerns are addressed in the Canadian magazine "Today's Parent." No federal agency in Canada collects this information, so the magazine takes the data from each province and aggregates it into a national list of their own. In doing so, they choose to put alt spellings together (Kaylee and Caden each have *12* different spellings!) and even put together different pronunciations of the same root name, like Matthew and Mathieu. There's fewer Latino-popular names like Javier or Angel (for a boy) or Belen (for a girl), and more distinctively French and Irish ones than the US list, but still a ton of overlap. Maybe looking at it will jive more with our experiences.
http://www.todaysparent.com/pregnancybirth/becomingparent/article.jsp?co...

Not to be daft, but how do those people spell Austin 4 different ways? I could see Austen, and I guess they could do Austyn or Austan (although these both make me cringe a bit), but what else? Osten? And please tell me it's not Awstin...

I did the grouping into orbits thing in a spreadsheet myself. I grouped by rhyme, ending syllable, ending letter, nickname, and variant spellings. I'm not at home right now to access the data, but I know that anyone considering nicknaming their daughter Ellie should reconsider if popularity is a problem. Something like 15% of the top 150 names could (of course, aren't always) be nicknamed Ellie.

Why I chose these criteria (if you care):
Rhyme was mainly for Aidan and the like; ending syllable was created for the -dens but yielded a plethora of others (-ly turned out to be huge); ending letter was originally to get a sense of what percentage of the girls' names ended in A and boys' in N; nickname was out of curiosity with all those -ella names running about; and variant spellings, well, we've discussed this. There were double digits of ways to spell Aidan and Jaden each (in the top 1000), if I remember.

I'll go home tonight and share the most interesting findings, if you guys want.

AJ, Thanks for the link. Interesting compiling of names. I wonder how they came across all the various spellings - must have combed through every 2007 birth name in every province. I noticed one questionable grouping right off: Zack with various spellings of Zachary. Zachary spelled any way could be called "Zack" but it seems unlikely that a boy named Zack would ever be called the full form of the name. So I wouldn't include that form of the name with the full name.

I'm glad SSA doesn't combine names, but instead rates each name by exact spelling. I think that provides more objective data and leaves it to others to combine spellings as they choose. The Canadian top 100 is interesting but impossible to compare with the USA top 100 due to the combined spellings for many of the names.

C & C's mom,
The two Liams are just Liams; we also have a William and an Ian. I guess those are popular vowels on little boys these days!

Because I'm so visual, I'm imagining a map with topographic circles or something showing pockets o' babies. I kind of think it's more demographic that geographic, though. I can name seven babies that I know of born in the last year--four were Abigail and two were Michael. These people live in different parts of the country, but I'd say they're pretty close in income brackets.

Well, curious to see whether I live in a pocket where the names I like are popular, I just searched my local newspaper's online birth records. I'm happy to say that my three top girl names are barely used in my area. But Ava and Addison...whoa buddy. All over the place.

Sushila-Thanks for the explanation about randomness. That was just what I was wondering.

Has Laura ever done a post about regions that are ahead of the curve in terms of naming popularity? Another recurring fascination of mine is with children who seem to have been named just two or three years ahead of a big trend. For example, there is an Addison in Jack's swim class who must be about five.

AJ- I enjoyed the link too. I actually liked the fact that they grouped by name, even when there were many varieties of spelling. The only one I quibbled with was combining Hailey, etc. with Halle, as I thought they were pronounced differently. In fact, I don't think of them as being related at all.

I agree, Valerie, and I want to reiterate that in the past, before either was widely used, I would have thought of Callie and Halle as utterly different.

But now, it seems that many orbits are burgeoning precisely because of sound associations. So, I would now posit that Callie and Halle are, to many non-NEs (Name Enthusiasts, to new readers) indeed part of the same orbit.

Thanks, C&C's mom. When you're considering a name that no one you know has (I've met some older Cobys in Israel), it's hard to gauge how it will be received, and I'm one of those people who don't want to share the names I'm considering with close friends.

Another thing I'm curious about: how do people here feel about giving a name that someone you know well, or fairly well, just chose for their newborn, especially if it's not an extremely popular name. Friends of ours just named their new baby Jonah, which I've always liked, but now I'm reluctant to use it (I'm giving birth in September). If I unequivocally knew I was already using it, I probably wouldn't care, but while I'm still in the muddling phase, I feel like it's now out of the running.

Regarding the list of the top 100 baby names in Canada, I too questioned Hallie being grouped with Hailey (in its many spellings). Similarly, I wouldn't pronounce Kallie the same as Kaylee. Also, would Mya(h) be an alternative spelling for Mia, as it was grouped here, or for Maya? Too, I've heard Kyra pronounced like Kyle and not as "Keira". Those were the combined girls' names that I questioned. Among the boys' names, I think of Brendan as a separate name from Brandon. Other than that the names seemed to be grouped accurately according to their phonetic pronunciations.

I'd be interested in seeing the top 100 names in the USA when spellings are combined (but same pronunciation), particularly after the 2007 SSA results are out. It sounds like some members of this blog may be tabulating those.

Rachel,

My son and his wife considered Jonah, but decided against it due to it sounding like the female names Joan/Joanie and also due to the 'a' ending. On babynamereviews.com (I think it was), I came across posts by 2 men named Jonah who didn't like their name at all because of teasing when they were young and lifelong unfamiliarity of others with the name (probably that would be less so now that the name has come into general usage). As I recall, one adult Jonah tried to dissuade parents from choosing that name and the other Jonah mentioned he'd thought about legally changing his name.

I can see both the appeal -- and the concerns -- of Jonah.

Here's the link for comments about the name Jonah by two men with that name:
http://pregnancyandbaby.com/baby_names/Boys/J/Jonah4.html

On the other hand, many parents and others wrote very positively about Jonah.

It would definitely put me off if people I knew had chosen the name I liked a few months before my baby was born. Just don't want to look like a copy-cat I suppose..

Jonah's quite mainstream now, isn't it?

Along the same lines, I read that in England the most popular boys name is actually Mohommad but because so many different spellings are used it doesn't show up as the most popular name (or even in the top 10 boys names).