by Bryan Belrad

Created on: January 18, 2011

Lately, I've noticed a lot of people having babies with unusual names. Sure, trends in baby naming come and go - I haven't met a 'Gertrude' who's under 50 myself. Likewise, I've met more 'Mackenzie's who are under the age of 10 than all the other girl names put together. That got me wondering - just what are the popular names these days? Is this odd occurrence a national thing, or just something in the air in my area?

So I decided to do some poking around, and I've come up with a list of the 20 most popular names for each gender. Believe it or not, the contest for most popular name is very intense; with millions of children born in the US every year, the top name was only picked around 20,000 times (just 1%, respective to each gender), and the #20 name, a little more than half that. In total, all top 20 names make up just 13-16% (girls:boys) of those given to newborns.

If you're looking for a common name, you've come to the right place. If you want something more rare or original, then you can cross any of these off your list. And, by the way, the stats that follow each name are for 2007 (because 2008 isn't finished yet), and include all the variant spellings (like Sarah / Sara).

20 - Grace: 9,573

19 - Alexis: 9,758

18 - Sarah: 9,823

17 - Natalie: 10,309

16 - Chloe: 10,598

15 - Mia: 10,773

14 - Alyssa: 11,146

13 - Ashley: 11,297

12 - Samantha: 11,689

11 - Addison: 11,823

10 - Elizabeth: 12,833

9 - Hannah: 13,076

8 - Abigail: 15,292

7 - Olivia: 16,329

6 - Sophia: 16,804

5 - Madison: 17,731

4 - Ava: 17,865

3 - Emma: 18,127

2 - Isabella: 18,874

1 - Emily: 19,105

Interestingly, Emily has been the #1 name since 1996. The longest reigning #1 name in the last century is Mary, which dominated from 1908 to 1946, and returned to prominence from 1953 to 1961.

It is interesting to note that while Biblical names are numerous on this list, they do not dominate it they way they do baby boys' names. What that says about baby-naming trends in America, however, is a topic for another article.

Source: United States Social Security Administration, applications for social security numbers for births.

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