I know, we see it all the time: "Oh, I love Sophia, but it's the most popular name!" Name-nerds know of course that the popular names of today are hardly equivalent to Jennifer or Jessica from our generation, but still, that "#1" label is intimidating.
So, how popular are our kids' names
really?
Obviously this will vary a bit based on region and personal experience, but here are a few "milepost" names from 2014, and their popularity equivalents for some previous years (based on percentage, since the birth rate fluctuates, and as we'll find, rankings aren't necessarily indicative ;) )
2014 name & rank
|
2000 equivalent
|
1995
|
1990
|
1985
|
1980
|
1975
|
1970
|
Noah (#1)
|
David (#16)
|
Alexander (#21)
|
Kevin (#23)
|
Steven (#24)
|
Thomas (#25)
|
Timothy (#22)
|
Matthew (#24)
|
Daniel (#10)
|
Noah (#27)
|
Christian (#28)
|
Adam (#32)
|
Aaron (#33)
|
Aaron (#34)
|
Paul (#29)
|
Ronald (#29)
|
Joseph (#20)
|
Hunter (#35)
|
Dylan (#34)
|
Richard (#35)
|
Sean (#38)
|
Nathan (#36)
|
Kenneth (#35)
|
Patrick (#33)
|
Aaron (#50)
|
Luis (#49)
|
Alex (#47)
|
Austin (#55)
|
Shawn (#55)
|
Edward (#52)
|
Bradley (#52)
|
Dennis (#46)
|
Camden / Tristan (#100)
|
Spencer (#98)
|
Isaac (#98)
|
Jesus (#90)
|
Luis (#85)
|
Brent (#84)
|
Billy (#84)
|
Jimmy (#86)
|
Jonas (#500)
|
Walker (#426)
|
Felipe (#413)
|
Keenan (#391)
|
Kent (#349)
|
Julius (#352)
|
Dan (#369)
|
Jonathon (#354)
|
Sutton / Garrison (#1001)
|
Khalid (#783)
|
Thaddeus (#756)
|
Uriel (#687)
|
Wilfredo (#632)
|
Heriberto (#637)
|
Kim (#631)
|
Sonny (#582)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Emma (#1)
|
Hannah (#2)
|
Sarah (#5)
|
Jennifer (#8)
|
Melissa (#11)
|
Michelle (#10)
|
Lisa (#8)
|
Melissa (#7)
|
Charlotte (#10)
|
Anna (#22)
|
Alyssa (#27)
|
Laura (#29)
|
Andrea (#33)
|
Shannon (#29)
|
Karen (#27)
|
Christina (#35)
|
Aubrey (#20)
|
Hailey (#35)
|
Olivia (#39)
|
Kristen (#42)
|
Christine (#44)
|
Christine (#41)
|
Crystal (#43)
|
Debra (#47)
|
Sarah (#50)
|
Makayla (#67)
|
Briana (#74)
|
Brooke (#70)
|
Meghan (#63)
|
Lindsay (#71)
|
Kristin (#74)
|
Laurie (#88)
|
Jasmine (#100)
|
Kelly (#111)
|
Meghan (#112)
|
Haley (#108)
|
Carrie (#96)
|
Sabrina (#113)
|
Vanessa (#115)
|
Annette (#128)
|
Evie (#501)
|
Taryn (#448)
|
Shawna (#425)
|
Celeste (#398)
|
Jackie (#388)
|
Melisa (#405)
|
Sherrie (#406)
|
Tabatha (#401)
|
Kai (#999)
|
Shaylee (#830)
|
Magdalena (#772)
|
Deja (#746)
|
Peggy (#697)
|
Sunshine (#703)
|
Sandi (#702)
|
Candi (#655)
|
So here's how it works: in 2014
Emma was given to about an equal percentage of girls as
Hannah was in 2000;
Sarah was in 1995;
Jennifer was in 1990, and so on. You may also notice an interesting phenomenon--while the popular names today are less common than in previous generations, less popular names are actually
more common. A name ranked at #1000 in 1980 would have been given to fewer children than the #1000 name today.
And unfortunately, this does
not take alternate spellings into account, so a name like
Aubrey, which has a few different spellings, probably actually corresponds to a slightly more common name in the past. Likewise, 2014
Sarah is only equivalent to
Makayla in 2000--that doesn't include
Michaela or
Mikayla or
Micaela.
If you wish to look up a certain name,
the whole spreadsheets are here.
Yeah, I only did every 5 years, 1970-2000, because a) it's a lot of data & I'm lazy, and b) I figured most people on the internet interested in name trends were born between those years. ;)