In 2014 I featured a series of blog posts introducing you to 2,014 names. For the most part they were names that were brand new to me as well. Some names may be more familiar but I found the meaning or origin or some other aspect of the name made it worthy of inclusion here. You may love some of the names, you may hate some, but hopefully you enjoy learning about all of them.

Friday, May 8, 2015

We've talked top 10, Now let's talk top 20

The top 20 names on the SSA list of the most popular names given to babies in 2014 for boys and girls:

RankMale name
Female name
1NoahEmma
2LiamOlivia
3MasonSophia
4JacobIsabella
5WilliamAva
6EthanMia
7MichaelEmily
8AlexanderAbigail
9JamesMadison
10DanielCharlotte
11ElijahHarper
12BenjaminSofia
13LoganAvery
14AidenElizabeth
15JaydenAmelia
16MatthewEvelyn
17JacksonElla
18DavidChloe
19LucasVictoria
20JosephAubrey

Names that improved their ranking this year from last :

Mason, James, Benjamin, Logan, Emma, Olivia, Charlotte, Harper, Sofia, Amelia, Evelyn
Victoria returns to the top 20 this year, after a 14 year absence.
Lucas is brand new to the top 20 this year

Names that fell in the rankings from last year:

Sophia, Elizabeth, Avery, Chloe, Ella, Aubrey
Jacob, Aiden, Matthew, Jackson, Logan
Aubrey and Anthony both dropped out of the top 20

Not too many changes. I think some are due to people choosing different spellings more and more, so names like Jackson, Aiden, Jayden, and Sophia haven't actually become less popular. People are just choosing to spell them differently. This can be seen in the rest of the list, by the number of spots taken up, essentially, by one name. Jackson is a great example. Falling from 16th place to 17th isn't the whole picture. Because Jaxon ranked 46th. Together they represent 20,056 baby boys with the same name (but different spellings). Jaxson was ranked 85th, with 4900 births. Added to the previous total that's 24,956, and we're just getting started. There are a LOT of different ways people have spelled Jackson. Not one name in America was used that many times, at least, using only one spelling of the name. Since 2005. This explains why you can hear of or meet a lot of babies or children with the name even though the name fell on the SSA list. Just that spelling of the name fell. The name itself could be even more popular. 

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