The social security administration says Jacob was tops for boys and Sophia for girls. I like all the boys names but Mason and Jaden. The only girl’s name I don’t like is Madison. Our 2011 baby was a Charlotte.
I wonder why Mia’s so high up there. It can’t be related to Pulp Fiction.
I wouldn’t be shocked if at least 2 of these stick out in the minds of young dads or moms;
Mia Toretto, a ‘The Fast and The Furious’ character
Mia Thermopolis, a ‘The Princess Diaries’ character
Mia Wallace, a ‘Pulp Fiction’ character
Mia Jones, a ‘Degrassi: The Next Generation’ character
Mia Ausa, a ‘Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete’ character
Mia St. Clair, an American Girl character
I’d love to think they’re hip to the British performer M.I.A..
I work with a Jayden. He’s in his mid-30s I think. Even though I also think of it is a bit of a tacky name, I got used to it pretty quickly.
I was looking at the top 5 names over the last century and thinking maybe popular names were becoming more variable. John and William were 2nd and 3rd from 1929 to 1949, for example, and you didn’t see things like how Ethan went from 5th to 2nd in just four years. Michael’s reign as most popular was pretty long, though.
My own name was the most popular for the year I was born. I was named for an uncle-- wonder if maybe they’re cyclical.
I wasn’t surprised the top boy name started with J, but I was surprised there weren’t a majority of J-names as there seem to have been recently.
OK, maybe 26 years ago isn’t exactly “recently” but when my daughter was in school, she had 5 friends named Jessica, and among her classmates were these and variants: Josh, Jordan, Jake, Jared, Justin, Jonathan, Jeremy, Jennifer, Jillian, and probably more that I don’t remember or couldn’t spell if I could remember them. Or maybe it’s just where we were living??
Alongside the aforementioned Jayden, I also work with a Josh, a Jarrod, a John, and our manager just goes by the initial of “J” because he doesn’t like his real name*.
*Which I have forgotten, but it is a bit unusual
We called our daughter, born last year, Isla. I was surprised to see it was down in the 200s in the US list (although up from the 600s in 2008). Here in the UK it came in at number 10 last year, which surprised me as I don’t know any others with that name.
I’m assuming that the Spanish influence in America means it would likely be misspelt and/or misunderstood, so is less likely to become popular there. (The s is silent as in “island”, not as in the Spanish word for the same thing, in case you were wondering.)
I see Noah on the list. We’ve baptized a couple of Noahs at our church in recent months. It’s definitely at least a little trendy right now.
One of the couples in our ante-natal class last year named their son Noah. I haven’t come across any others. And two of them went for Joshua, which seems to have been ubiquitous for about 10 years (my wife’s a teacher and her classes are full of Joshes and Joshuas).
Re Mia’s popularity, it may also be related to the recent (and current) popularity of names like Emily and (even more so) Amelia.
Weird how most of the trendy girls’ names are so 19th century.
My favorites (“Tramp” and “Bandit”) surprisingly did not make either list.
Where did the name “Jayden” come from?
When I saw Jacob was at #1 I wondered if it was because of Twilight, but Edward isn’t even in the top 100, so probably not.
Jacob has been very popular for a long time – over a decade. It doesn’t have anything to do with Twilight.
Isn’t that Will Smith’s kid? Ugh, I don’t agree with this list…
But that wouldn’t explain where a thirtysomething got the name. I can’t think of any adults I know personally or by reputation named Jayden.
I’m getting used to Jayden, but Brayden and its variations are horrible to me. Bray is what a donkey does.
The most revolting name on the list is probably Brody though.
BTW, Colophon, I think Isla is a beautiful name.
Names (for boys as well as girls) seem to go in cycles. Lots of names that, when I was growing up, were very much “old people’s names”, such as Edward, Joshua (which puts me in mind of an old bearded guy from biblical times), Charlie, Ava, Ruby, Edith/Edie etc etc, now seem to be very popular. Meanwhile, names that were common when I was at school (in the 1980s), such as Paul, Darren, Mark, Stuart, Sarah, Katherine, Tracy and Louise have become much rarer.
Looking at the equivalent lists for the UK (boys, girls), I see that the top names are Oliver and Lily. To me, born in the 1970s, those are names that people’s grandparents might have had, but I don’t recall any children in our school with those names - or most of the top 10 of each, to be honest. A couple of Jameses and Thomases, and maybe a Sophie and a Chloe but that’s about it.
Of the names that I recall lots of at school, hardly any of those mentioned above are in the top 100. (Only Matthew at 25, Sarah at 75, and I suppose Katie at 48 is almost Katherine.) Actually I’m surprised Kate wasn’t on the list, what with the royal wedding…
PS thanks Blackberry, we’ve had lots of compliments on the name. (Not that people are likely to say “What a crappy name” to our faces, but still 
)
Too late for the edit: just noticed those aren’t official lists, but the official ones for 2010 aren’t that different…