baby names!

[flea]

Today's the day the Social Security baby name lists for 2008 come out (they deliberately release them for mother's day, awww.) http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/

This year's top 10 are hardly surprising, although Emma has knocked Emily out of the #1 spot for girls:
1 Jacob Emma
2 Michael Isabella
3 Ethan Emily
4 Joshua Madison
5 Daniel Ava
6 Alexander Olivia
7 Anthony Sophia
8 William Abigail
9 Christopher Elizabeth
10 Matthew Chloe

Addison is still #12 for girls (was #11 last year) and my possibly least favorite name ever, Jayden, is #11 for boys. (And Brayden is #50. Why, people, why. Brayden is what a donkey does.)

Casper's name is up to #54 (was #88 the year we named her, was #161 10 years ago).
Dillo's name is still dropping, down to #183.
My name peaked last year and is down to #348.
mr. flea's name is, well, #2. His middle name, though, is #691 and falling.

How 'bout you?

Comments

[katie-m.livejournal.com]

My actual spelling is, no surprise, not on the list, but the spelling I run into most commonly is #45. So a nice middle-of-the-road kind of name.

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

My name is not in the top 1000 in the last nine years. I think it may have just cracked the top 1000 in the years of my birth, though.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Neither of your names!

[serrana.livejournal.com]

Both kids steadily falling, woot!

(I really wanted names that most English-speakers could spell, but did not want my kids to have the ">10% of your high school class has the same name you do" experience.)

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Me too. I guessed wrong with Casper.

[serrana.livejournal.com]

I am surprised, because I always think of that as being of the same vintage (and therefore relative popularity-for-girls) as Herself's name.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Oh, Herself's is fascinating! It has a double peak - late 30s and early 50s - but is top-50 from 1931-1964. Whereas Casper's is overall more popular, and also has a different pattern. It peaked at #10 in 1915 and bottomed out only at #289 in 1977 (Herself is down into the 700s). It was top 50 until 1941, but if trends continue may hit top 50 again next year.

[serrana.livejournal.com]

Hunh -- whereas Nana, who Herself is named after, was born in 1918.

Although Herself isn't even the first Herself Lastname; there were a couple in the 1800s.

[lili-beth.livejournal.com]

I'm #9, and DH (Jeffrey) is #198. His rank sort of surprises me.

The names we have for Babyfras have never been in the top 1000.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Tyquavious? Ietta? (Both actual names of kindergarteners at Casper's school.)

I'll be interested to see, especially if it's a boy - I found it almost impossible to think of boys' names off the list!

[lili-beth.livejournal.com]

So, the boy's name would have been Zev - very Hebrew. My DH tried to take everything Anglo off the table, despite the fact that I like to remind him his daughter is a Mayflower descendant x3.

[cassandre.livejournal.com]

Fun link! Charles (my 4-year-old, known as Charlie) is 63. I would have thought it would be higher. My husband is 10.

Neither my first name, Jody, nor my middle name (which is the one I actually go by) made the top 1000.

My sister's kids have more original names than mine: Shaylin (girl), Dane (boy) and Airiana (girl).

I have been curious for awhile as to how you started charting baby names.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away - okay, on Salon.com's Table Talk, when it was free - there was a thread about baby names. One of my Buffy friends was really into them, too. Then somebody linked to the Baby Name Wizard (http://www.babynamewizard.com/) and associated blog. Then I actually had a kid, and that's when I got serious. To the extent that I'm actually serious - there are commenters on the Baby Name Wizard blog who are SERIOUS.

It appeals to both my anthropologist and my linguist sides!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Alex is #61. Colin is #114. I'm #119 and Michael is #2.

It blows my mind that "Isabella" is #2. They're going to grow up knowing as many Isabellas as I know Michelles or Lisas.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

A little fewer, probably - names are much more diverse now than they were 30-40 years ago. In 2008, 18,377 Isabellas (#2) were born. In 1972, 29,273 Michelles (#2) and 27,546 Lisas (#3) were born. Partly because of creative spellings and the desire to be unique, there are fewer in raw numbers of every name.

[dxmachina.livejournal.com]

My first name is accompanying Dillo's into obscurity, but it was #23 when I was born. Even then it was sliding. It was #9 when both my father and grandfather were born (with the same name).

What's interesting to me is my middle name, which is actually two names. The first was #89 when I was born, and the second #770. Now they are #656 and #71, respectively. Quite the swap in popularity.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

I'd be willing to bet the one that's falling is falling largely because it sounds like a female name, and the one that's rising is a) often latino and b) has an initial sound that's popular right now. Also fascinating!

[(Anonymous)]

Older son's name (Lucas) steadily rising. Younger son's name (Ezekiel) still relatively obscure. My own name (Clare) is somewhere around 700, but add an "i" and it suddenly becomes trendy. If we ever have a daughter, I suppose we will be jumping on the popular name bandwagon; the name we both love is Evelina (after my grandmother, named Evelyn).

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

For our kids, Girl Name has risen 200+ slots in the last two years, though it's still relatively rare. Boy Name has hovered between 40 and 80 for the last half-century; a good solid classic.

Canadian name trends are very slightly different. Sara, for example, is still holding on strong.

Mine was never as rare here as it was in the States. In both countries, though, the peak for it hit when I was in my late teens. I sometimes wonder if people expect to meet a twenty-something when they hear my name. :)

[susanw.livejournal.com]

Annabel is 801, but Annabelle is 188, and there are a couple of other spellings in the mix. I still think we chose by far the best spelling.

Susan continues to plummet 40-50 places a year. It's at 712 now. Dylan is 31.

Of the top 10 names, Ethan surprises me because I haven't encountered it anywhere. And if my church were anything to go by, Jack would be in the top 10. Most of them are indeed Jacks, and not John using it as a nickname, which makes my old-school naming soul sad. And Brayden and Jayden annoy me because they've spoiled Aidan for me, and it used to be one of my favorites.

Looking at some of my favorites for a hypothetical second kid...if DH got no input at all, I'd name a boy Arthur, which is 363--higher than I thought. DH's favorite is Brendan, at 207 much lower than I thought. I'm very fond of Henry (78) and Patrick (127), and we'd like to use Edmund, a family name not in the top 1000.

For a girl we'd consider Eleanor (256, and I thought it would be MUCH higher). I like Josephine (208) and Rosa (457), and DH likes Honor and Harriet, neither of which are top 1000.

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

I know tons of Jacks. Some are "just Jack" and many are Jacksons (happily, no Jaxons, but I'm sure they are out there). My coworker has a year-old Jack who is a John, though, which makes me happy.

I generally agree with your tastes (as you know!) but I would probably not choose Henry or Eleanor, because of popularity. Henry may be #78 but that's belied by my actual social circles, which are filled with Henrys, and I adore Eleanor, but I also know lots of Ellie-names kids. If I did pick Eleanor, I'd go with Nell as a nickname. I also know a couple of Josies who are Josephines (though I love that one too - I am basically a sucker for most top names from 1910-1915 - one of my grandmother's best friends was Josephine, another Louise, and her sisters were Natalie, Cecilie, and Marjorie.)

[mightyurchin.livejournal.com]

H's name has been holding steady in the low 200s for the past 5 years, after breaking into the 100s for a few years in the late 90s/early 00s.
For me, same as Casper. (When I got the name, it was #254.)
My husband's name (Alan) is surprisingly high in the list - #135.
Virginia, which is our leading girl's name for the baby, should it be a girl, (which is the same girl's name that we had before, in honor of my grandmother), came in at #562.

BTW, I know a Brayden, a Graydon, and a Grayson, all under the age of 3. There's something about that "--ay-on" sound that people seem to like these days.

[burrell.livejournal.com]

I find it fascinating that Franny's name keeps dropping lower and lower. I think it's pretty but it is WAY out of fashion. Perhaps that's why her teacher and several parents in the class keep reversing my name with hers. My name is more popular now than it ever was when I was a kid.