Top 100 baby names 2005 (in U.S.)

[Ellemeno]

I just got around to reading the Ramona thread in CT, and I got curious about the currently most popular baby names.  According to BabyCenter.com, in the U.S., here are the top 100 for girls, follwoed by the top 100 for boys:

Girl Names
1   Emma
2   Emily
3   Madison
4   Kaitlyn
5   Sophia
6   Isabella
7   Olivia
8   Hannah
9   Makayla
10   Ava
11   Abigail
12   Sarah
13   Hailey
14   Kaylee
15   Madeline
16   Ella
17   Grace
18   Mia
19   Riley
20   Samantha
21   Sydney
22   Lauren
23   Mackenzie
24   Chloe
25   Alyssa
26   Lily
27   Alexis
28   Natalie
29   Taylor
30   Anna
31   Brianna
32   Zoe
33   Kylie
34   Ashley
35   Elizabeth
36   Megan
37   Allison
38   Kayla
39   Katherine
40   Kyra
41   Isabelle
42   Morgan
43   Savannah
44   Jasmine
45   Arianna
46   Avery
47   Julia
48   Rachel
49   Maya
50   Jordan
51   Brooke
52   Paige
53   Victoria
54   Peyton
55   Katie
56   Abby
57   Gabriella
58   Alexandra
59   Leah
60   Jessica
61   Rebecca
62   Brooklyn
63   Gabrielle
64   Audrey
65   Amelia
66   Jenna
67   Reagan
68   Sophie
69   Trinity
70   Sierra
71   Cadence
72   Lillian
73   Ashlyn
74   Bailey
75   Gracie
76   Faith
77   Kendall
78   Kate
79   Molly
80   Claire
81   Kennedy
82   Caroline
83   Addison
84   Marissa
85   Alana
86   Destiny
87   Jada
88   Amanda
89   Alexa
90   Erin
91   Layla
92   Gianna
93   Ellie
94   Camryn
95   Nicole
96   Angelina
97   Charlotte
98   Aaliyah
99   Mckenna
100   Lucy

Boy Names
1   Aidan
2   Jacob
3   Ethan
4   Nicholas
5   Matthew
6   Ryan
7   Tyler
8   Jack
9   Joshua
10   Andrew
11   Dylan
12   Michael
13   Connor
14   Caden
15   Jayden
16   Noah
17   Zachary
18   Alexander
19   Logan
20   Caleb
21   Nathan
22   Jackson
23   William
24   Evan
25   Joseph
26   Benjamin
27   James
28   Christopher
29   Cameron
30   Daniel
31   Christian
32   Luke
33   Gavin
34   Gabriel
35   Mason
36   Anthony
37   Brayden
38   David
39   Austin
40   Lucas
41   John
42   Elijah
43   Owen
44   Jonathan
45   Brandon
46   Alex
47   Samuel
48   Sean
49   Thomas
50   Hunter
51   Landon
52   Jordan
53   Justin
54   Carter
55   Cole
56   Jake
57   Ian
58   Liam
59   Hayden
60   Dominic
61   Isaac
62   Jason
63   Kyle
64   Adam
65   Isaiah
66   Aaron
67   Nathaniel
68   Colin
69   Devin
70   Riley
71   Robert
72   Max
73   Eric
74   Tristan
75   Chase
76   Wyatt
77   Carson
78   Julian
79   Cooper
80   Blake
81   Charlie
82   Brady
83   Bryce
84   Brendan
85   Brian
86   Sebastian
87   Xavier
88   Seth
89   Parker
90   Cody
91   Sam
92   Patrick
93   Ashton
94   Will
95   Kevin
96   Garrett
97   Ben
98   Trevor
99   Henry
100   Drew

[Kelda]

I just got around to reading the Ramona thread in CT, and I got curious about the currently most popular baby names.  According to BabyCenter.com, in the U.S., here are the top 100 for girls, follwoed by the top 100 for boys:

Girl Names
1   Emma
2   Emily
3   Madison
....
....
99   Mckenna

Now that it's just plain weird to call your kid that - according to my logics!!!!

McKenna is soooo a surname!! There was a ned (I don't know whet the equivalent american would be but its somebody that wears kappa tracksuits and baseball caps and speaks nasely and spits and drinks and smokes! The English name for it would be a Chav - but in Scotland they are Non Educated Deliquents. ) in my class with the surname mcKenna.

Suprised at how many traditional British names are on the list. And Kylie is on it.. you guys are about 20 years behind us in the UK there and gawd knows how far behind Oz. - there are now lots of 18year olds called Kylie in the UK after the one amazing little Kylie Minogue!

[Jeff Wrangler]

What, no Ennis? 

Guess my name wore out its welcome a long time ago.    Actually, I don't wonder. It must have been awfully  popular in the late 1950s because by the time I got to elementary school in the early 1960s there were sometimes as many as four of us Jeffs in one class.

How long has Kylie Minogue been around? How can there be a bunch of 18-year-olds in the U.K. named after her? 

Kind of interesting to see that Andrew is eighth, and that its derivative/shortened form Drew is one hundredth.

[delalluvia]

I'm surprised to see an old friend's name on the list 'Layla'.  She was Middle-Eastern.  Her name translates to a kind of 'evening light'.

And why Makayla and not MIchaela?  They're pronounced the same, and I think the latter is the correct feminized version of Michael.

[Kelda]

How long has Kylie Minogue been around? How can there be a bunch of 18-year-olds in the U.K. named after her? 

Kylie has just become known in the states but has been around for a long time. She was a child actress. I first knew her from the Hendersons Kids - an Oz kids programme where she rode about on a bike a fair bit.

But she became REALLY famous in 86 when she had a role in Oz soap Neighbours. her character was Charlene - a tomboy girl who became a mechanic and married the heart throb male teenage character called Scott Robinson (one Jason Donavon that now does lots of WestEnd musicals) . I cried at the wedding!! And I loved 'Suddenly' the song they played at the wedding and which became a hit. I must download it on to my MP3 player some time.

She was in the film the delinquents in 1989 which i deperately wanted to see but was never allowed as it was a 15 rating and I was 8!.

Anyway - Kylie then went on to be a HUGE pop star, but in the mid 90's she kinda dissapeared as a large pop icon but she came back in 2000 and blew us all away again.

She was also the green fairy in moulin rouge because Baz Lurhmann loves here!

[MaineWriter]

For people who are into names, past and present, this website can be addicting:

http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html

Leslie

[Jeff Wrangler]

Kylie has just become known in the states but has been around for a long time. She was a child actress. I first knew her from the Hendersons Kids - an Oz kids programme where she rode about on a bike a fair bit.

But she became REALLY famous in 86 when she had a role in Oz soap Neighbours. her character was Charlene - a tomboy girl who became a mechanic and married the heart throb male teenage character called Scott Robinson (one Jason Donavon that now does lots of WestEnd musicals) . I cried at the wedding!! And I loved 'Suddenly' the song they played at the wedding and which became a hit. I must download it on to my MP3 player some time.

She was in the film the delinquents in 1989 which i deperately wanted to see but was never allowed as it was a 15 rating and I was 8!.

Anyway - Kylie then went on to be a HUGE pop star, but in the mid 90's she kinda dissapeared as a large pop icon but she came back in 2000 and blew us all away again.

She was also the green fairy in moulin rouge because Baz Lurhmann loves here!

Thanks, Kelda. I had no clue that Kylie Minogue has been around that long. I knew she has recently had a bout with cancer, but I had no idea she had been a child star.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Noticed that neither my first name, Barry, nor my middle name, Scott, made the top 100, but Eric, a name my mother came very close to calling me, is number 73.

"Barry Scott"? Hey, that sounds classy!

(Be glad you're not stuck with "Jeffrey Lynn."  )

[MaineWriter]

Noticed that neither my first name, Barry, nor my middle name, Scott, made the top 100, but Eric, a name my mother came very close to calling me, is number 73.

I really like the name Samuel, and its shortened form Sam, and note that both made the list.

If my daughter Hannah had been a boy, she was going to be Samuel Benjamin, which is a family name....

L

[moremojo]

If my daughter Hannah had been a boy, she was going to be Samuel Benjamin, which is a family name....

L

I've long been fond of the name Benjamin too (which I notice is number 26); in fact, I remember as a child sometimes wishing I had been named Benjamin. So your daughter, had she been male, would have had the best of both worlds!

But actually, I think everyone should take pride in their names, and I always coax people who hate their names to come to terms with them. And while on that subject, has anyone ever thought to revive some of the ancient Roman names? In the nineteenth century, one sometimes reads of an Octavia here and there, but, apart from a common form like Julia, Roman names seem scarce today, at least among women. I want to see someone revive one of my favorites--Scribonia.

[Jeff Wrangler]

My family raised me as Scott, but my mother wanted to name me somehow after my father, whose first name is Barry, so Barry had to go in there somewhere too. My mom chose 'Barry Scott' over 'Scott Barry' because she thought that with 'Scott Barry Moore', people would tease me about being a scion of the Barrymore family. What she didn't seem to realize is that with 'Barry' as my first name, it's right there: 'Barry Moore'! Most folks don't know your middle name unless you tell them.

The Barrymores were actually a Philadelphia family. John is buried here, and the family had a house about a block and a half from where I live today.

'Lynn' and 'Lynne' are fairly common middle names among females, I notice. I have a female first cousin whose middle name is Lynne. It's more unusual seen as part of a boy's name. That reminds me of my late paternal grandfather and his youngest brother--my grandfather's first name was Muriel, and his brother's is Beverly! My grandfather hated his name, and insisted on going by his middle name, while my great-uncle has always been known as Beverly.

My mother always insisted that "Lynn" was a boy's name/the spelling for a boy. I never bought it because it was how the next-door neighbors spelled the middle name of their youngest daughter. Mother also insisted that I was not named for a 1950s B-movie actor, Jeffrey Lynn. I wouldn't have minded if she'd named me for Jeffrey Hunter. He was hot! 

Talk about hating your name, my mother's maternal grandfather, my great-grandfather, who died in his 90th year ten years before I was born, was named William Hiram Bailey.

That's right. ... Bill Bailey!

[moremojo]

Talk about hating your name, my mother's maternal grandfather, my great-grandfather, who died in his 90th year ten years before I was born, was named William Hiram Bailey.

That's right. ... Bill Bailey!

Wow...born circa 1858, died about 1948; impressive life span! I'm not even sure when the Bill Bailey song originated, but your great-grandfather might have been older than it. That would have been way cool!

An uncle of my late maternal grandfather was named Valentine Hardt! Hardt was his last name. That was the source of some amusement in my family, and I bet you can be sure that no one forgot the man's name.

[Penthesilea]

If my daughter Hannah had been a boy, she was going to be Samuel Benjamin, which is a family name....

L

One of my daughters is named Hannah, too  .

Sometimes I wonder about American names. In Germany, it is not allowed to give a girl a boy's name or vice versa (with the exception of Maria as a second name for a boy). And the name must be clearly male or female. If you choose a name like Kim, which can be both, the child must be given a second (clearly female or male) name.

67 Reagan

Reagan as a female first name? I only know Ronald Reagan  .


Kennedy, Brooklyn, Mckenna, Taylor - female first names? Wow.

[moremojo]

Sometimes I wonder about American names. In Germany, it is not allowed to give a girl a boy's name or vice versa (with the exception of Maria as a second name for a boy). And the name must be clearly male or female. If you choose a name like Kim, which can be both, the child must be given a second (clearly female or male) name.

You mean there's actually a law addressing this matter? That surprises me, and seems unnecessary. And ideas of what constitutes feminine versus masculine can shift historically.

Reagan as a female first name? I only know Ronald Reagan  .

Regan I've seen as a girl's first name. Regan was one of the daughters of Lear in Shakespeare's King Lear, and Regan was also the name of the unfortunate girl subjected to the curative powers of The Exorcist (both book and film).

[Jeff Wrangler]

Wow...born circa 1858, died about 1948; impressive life span! I'm not even sure when the Bill Bailey song originated, but your great-grandfather might have been older than it. That would have been way cool!

That's it, Scott, born 1858, died 1948.  Mother used to talk about how after he became very hard of hearing, she would listen to "the fights" on the radio for him and tell him what was going on. She listened to the famous Joe Lewis--Max Schmeling fight for him. Mother was very close to her grandfather. My grandparents, their eight children (including my mother), and my great-grandparents all lived together in my great-grandparents' (my grandmother's parents) three-bedroom house. (Kind of creeps me out to think that my mother and her siblings were presumably conceived in the bedroom that my grandparents were sharing with my great-grandparents.)

I think the "Bill Bailey" song must date to around the beginning of the 20th century.

In Germany, it is not allowed to give a girl a boy's name or vice versa (with the exception of Maria as a second name for a boy).

Like the composer Karl Maria von Weber. 

Penthe, I'm curious. Is that "not allowed" by law or just by custom? I seem to remember reading a piece in The New Yorker a few years ago by an American writer living in Paris who had trouble registering the birth of his daughter, who was born in Paris, because the official in charge insisted that the name they had chose for the child (I forget what it was) was a boy's name.

In some of my history reading, I seem to remember coming across some aristocratic 17th-century Frenchman who had "Anne" as part of their names.

[MaineWriter]

I know that there are a number of countries that have laws about what you can name your children and have approved lists of names.

I read an essay (which I could not find, sorry!) about men's names that have become women's names (Ashley, is a good example, and my name, Leslie, to a lesser degree). Once a name has "crossed over" from being a man's name to a woman's name, very few, if any, have "crossed back." A few have become unisex (Robin, Kim).  "Losing" men's names is a problem since there are many more options for women's names than men.

The baby name voyager (link posted earlier) is a good way to see the history of names and how they have changed.

Leslie

[moremojo]

In some of my history reading, I seem to remember coming across some aristocratic 17th-century Frenchman who had "Anne" as part of their names.

Jeff, I found the following examples, one of whom (the second Duc de Noailles) might be your man (so to speak ):

Anne, duc de Montmorency (1493-1567)
Anne, duc de Joyeuse (1561-1587)
Anne, 1ere duc de Noailles (d. 1678)
Anne-Jules, 2 duc de Noailles (1650-1708), son of the preceding, and marechal de France

[Jeff Wrangler]

Jeff, I found the following examples, one of whom (the second Duc de Noailles) might be your man (so to speak ):

Anne, duc de Montmorency (1493-1567)
Anne, duc de Joyeuse (1561-1587)
Anne, 1ere duc de Noailles (d. 1678)
Anne-Jules, 2 duc de Noailles (1650-1708), son of the preceding, and marechal de France

Thanks, Scott. Montmorency sounds familiar (might have been a Huguenot leader, or maybe he had something to do with the Catholic-Protestant conflict in the the 16th century). The two ducs de Noailles sound familiar, too.

[Penthesilea]

You mean there's actually a law addressing this matter?

Penthe, I'm curious. Is that "not allowed" by law or just by custom?

Yes and No. Legislation is not only adressed in laws, but also in guidelines, directives, administrative fiats, and so on. Sorry, I lack the correct juridical vocabulary here. Lets just call it guidelines, but in fact it has the same effects like a law.

Those guidelines say first names must:

- be recognizable as a first name
- be clearly female or male
- be given within a month after birth


First names must not:

- damage the well-being of the child
- be a name of a location (eg city, town, whatever)
- be a last name (with exception of established names)
- be a brand name (eg Ford, Chrysler)

First names can not be given a copyright.

Problem is the lack of clear definitions: what name damages the well-being of a child? A couple of years ago there was a  prominent case when parents wanted to name their child "Pumuckl". Pumuckl is the name of a popular cartoon figure. Here's a picture of him:



The parents were not allowed to name their child Pumuckl and sued against this decision. But they failed, because the court said, this name would damage the well-being of the child.

On the other side, parents sued succesful and were allowed by court to name their daughter "Wolke", what means cloud.

I didn't want to judge which system is better. For me, American names are sometimes odd. Doesn't mean odd in a bad, disliking way - just in the sense of very unusual.

[MaineWriter]

True story:

I had a patient once who wanted to name her baby "Placenta." She heard the word in the delivery room and thought it was "pretty." I talked her out of it.

I had another patient who told me that her baby's name was "Female" (with the emphasis on the middle syllable fee-MA-lay). I asked why and she said, "The nurses in the nursery named her. It's on the card on her crib." We came up with another option for that baby, too.

Leslie

[moremojo]

Leslie,

My mother, a retired teacher, once had a male student named Colin, but whose name was pronounced by his parents as "colon". She came across her share of unusual names, one of the most distinctive being Misruthie (pronounced "Miss Ruthie"), belonging to a little girl.

Addressing the vagaries of last names, my sister, who is currently a teacher, has had a student of Vietnamese origin, whose surname is Phuc. She was told that the original Vietnamese pronuncation rhymes with the English word "luck", but the family, after settling in the U.S., modified the pronunciation to sound like "fook".

Edit: Correction of a minor typo and slight amendment of a word for more accurate and elegant text.

[Jeff Wrangler]

True story:

I had a patient once who wanted to name her baby "Placenta." She heard the word in the delivery room and thought it was "pretty." I talked her out of it.

I had another patient who told me that her baby's name was "Female" (with the emphasis on the middle syllable fee-MA-lay). I asked why and she said, "The nurses in the nursery named her. It's on the card on her crib." We came up with another option for that baby, too.

Leslie

What's the matter with Fe-MAH-lay? 

I had a friend whose mother was raised in a small town in Tennessee. She insisted that when she was a girl, a neighbor gave birth to a baby girl and wanted to name the child Vagina because she thought it sounded pretty. I don't know how that situation was resolved.

[Kelda]

My Mum had a kid in her nursery class (she was a nursery nurse before she retired) His name was Dwayne.

He had been named by Mr&Mrs Pipe.

 

[Dafna]

I have never had children but names still fascinate me to the point where I have 3 baby name books. A regular one, international baby names and Hebrew baby names. I have a list of names for future pets.

I hate my given name. Had I been a male, I would have been named "Seth" #88. I like the name but perhaps I would not if it were actually my name.

Names are very, very important I think to a person's identity. But how can parents ever really predict if a child will like the name. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

My Mum had a kid in her nursery class (she was a nursery nurse before she retired) His name was Dwayne.

He had been named by Mr&Mrs Pipe.

 

    

[delalluvia]

In my business, I've run across strange names:

Ms. Couch, that's Ms. Velvet Couch
Mr. and Mrs. Schmuck  (lived in Jersey)
Napoleon Bonapart Jones, III (the strange thing isn't the name, it's the fact that many men were named this)
Ms. S'Phyllis (yes, it's what you think)

[injest]

ok  redneck that I am...I have a set of Uncles named Man and Boy...

and here in Texas we had a Governor named Hogg...named his only daughter Ima...

she kept the name her whole life and became a famous philanthropist..

http://www.famoustexans.com/imahogg.htm

[Sashca1007]

Talk about hating your name, my mother's maternal grandfather, my great-grandfather, who died in his 90th year ten years before I was born, was named William Hiram Bailey.

That's right. ... Bill Bailey!

I always have a giggle over another 'Bill Bailey'--  Guns 'N Roses' Axl Rose!  I never knew that was his name until my MOM told me--  she is/was (not sure if they are still around) friends with his parents, and Mom still refers to him as 'Bill'.  I get an even bigger laugh when I hear my 85 year old Mom say the name 'Axl'  .