Top Ten Names
Woman in the Middle | May 21, 2012The Social Security Administration released the list of top 10 most popular names for boys and girls in 2011 last week. I soon received an email from Hubby concerning the new list. His reaction was “Really?!?” Needless to say this drove me to take a look at what Americans are naming their children nowadays. I just have a few comments.
1. We seem to have an obsession with Italy, as least when it comes to naming girls, thus the top ten names Sophia, Isabella, and Mia.
2. Being at war for what seems like decades in the middle east has not affected the popularity of the Persian name Ava, especially since Reese Witherspoon named her daughter Ava.
3. The name Jayden (or Jaden) wasn’t even on the radar before 1994 when it first cracked the top 1000. Then in 1998 Will Smith and his wife named their son Jaden and off it went!
4. The nerd-tastic name Mason was 39th in 2006 and now it is number 2. The jump in popularity is attributed to Kourtney Kardashian naming her son Mason.
5. While names of Italian origin might be popular for girls, names of Biblical origin still win out for boys with top ten names Michael, Noah, Jacob, and Daniel. Who am I kidding? Jacob is popular right now because of the Twilight books. But it is still biblical and that sounds a lot better than “My mom named me after a character in a teen vampire book.”
6. When it comes to naming our children, too many of us are incredibly shallow and will name our precious darling after some celebrity’s kid at the drop of a hat.
The top ten names for 2011 are below:
For boys:
- Jacob
- Mason
- William
- Jayden
- Noah
- Michael
- Ethan
- Alexander
- Aiden
- Daniel
For girls:
- Sophia
- Isabella
- Emma
- Olivia
- Ava
- Emily
- Abigail
- Madison
- Mia
- Chloe
I see a lot of our Latino students with names like Sohia, Isabella, and Emma. BTW: I see your point in children being named after celebs. I was named after a song, and my niece was named after a character in a movie. Who knows, maybe the babies of today will think it’s cool when they get older to say they were named after super heroes. After all, super heroes are all the rage today (Aqua Man, The Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America).
Slate had an interesting Explainer on name trends: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/explainer/2012/05/baby_names_why_do_so_many_of_the_popular_ones_rhyme_.html
My own children’s names follow the pattern described in 4th paragraph, though I swear it was not deliberate on my part.
Finally read that Slate article. It was very interesting! Thanks for sending it along. We were dealing with the problem of having a VERY common last name. Sigh! So we seem to have avoided the common naming trends because I did not want my girls to run into people with the same name everywhere they went. Of course they complain bitterly that they can’t find a mug with thier name on it. Oh well, can’t have everything!!!
One of my job perks is seeing crazy names. One is, and I swear, La-a. That’s pronounced Ladasha. Doubt that will make next year’s list….
What a nightmare, running around with that name!