Table of Contents
To Bryan and Allison, who continue to give this work meaning, origin, and popularity.
Introduction
The best thing about The Baby Name Countdown is not that it contains over 140,000 given names, although it does. (In fact, the lists in Part 3, Popular and Unusual Names, contain 81,486 different names for girls and 58,310 different names for boys, for a total of 139,796. If you count the unique second names, the total is over 140,000.) What makes it great is that as well as providing a huge list of first names, The Baby Name Countdown tells you how often each name was used. Every name is accompanied by a number indicating its frequency of use per thousand babies. If theres no number, its a one-in-a-million name. Of course, The Baby Name Countdown contains other information youll find useful or interesting: the meanings and origins of popular names, lists of the most popular names by region of the United States and Canada, and tables that show how popularity of names changes over time.
Every name in this book is a name actually given to a baby in North America last year or the year before. These are not fabricated lists of names gleaned from research in a library but compilations of data from birth records. The data presented is based on birth records for 2.5 million children, over half of the 4.5 million babies born in a year in the United States and Canada.
First-name basis
First names in North America are crucial. In the course of our daily lives, our last names are rarely used. Our friends, families, acquaintances, and even people who hardly know usbank tellers, shop clerks, telephone solicitors, and so onuse our first names. In many instances when we introduce ourselves, we use only our first names.
Traditionally only people who knew you very wellfamily members or close friendswould call you by your first name. Over time in North America this custom of addressing familiars by their first names developed into informal address for a wide variety of people, including coworkers and supervisors, even religious leaders (for instance, one might call the local pastor Father Mike, assuming his name is Michael) and sometimes teachers of young children.
Many children call peers of their parents by first name rather than the more traditional Mrs. Friendlyperson. Some children, mine included, even call their own parents by their first names. I took care to refer to myself as Mommy and my husband as Daddy, but our daughter heard everyone else calling us Janet and Bryan, so she did too.
Children and young adults are normally referred to in North America by first names, so thats what theyre accustomed to. As they mature, they may feel uncomfortable being called by the titles Mr. or Mrs. This is especially true if a woman kept her maiden name when she married. In that circumstance to be called Mrs. Husbandslastname is wrong. Since Mrs. is short for Misters, meaning belonging to the mister, being called Mrs. Maidenname isnt right either. Its simpler just to go by first name.
From familiarity to informality, the custom of using only first names is now becoming a security feature. Since one cant usually be uniquely identified by first name, more information about us cant be found if we divulge only our first name. When we provide our first name, we dont feel exposed to potential unwanted contact, but we appear friendly and open.
Conversely, while we seem to enjoy the anonymity of first names, many parents want a unique name for their child, something that sets them apart. Perhaps because of their increasing use as a persons sole name, more and more parents choose a name for their child that is unique or unusual, making their child more identifiable by first name only.
Although most children are given a popular name, the variety of popular names has increased. A century ago three-quarters of all children received a top 200 name. The following table charts the percentage of babies given one of the top 200 names in the United States over the last century. It shows a slow increase from 76% of babies receiving a popular name in the first decade, up to 80% in the 1940s. Then the percentages decrease until nowadays only 52% of babies have a popular name.
Percentage of babies receiving a top 200 (popular) name
An intriguing feature of naming in North America is that there are many more names for girls than for boys. This book contains approximately 81,500 different names for girls and 58,300 different names for boys. Thats 40% more names for girls than for boys. On the other hand, while parents give girls a huge range of first names, their choices for middle names are not so varied. According to Gary Thompson, the state registrar for West Virginia, in 2006 there were 1,879 distinct first names given to 10,682 males and 2,884 distinct first names given to 10,181 females. But when it comes to middle names, mothers tend to be more conservative in their naming choice for female children than they do their male children. In 2006 in West Virginia, there were 2,366 distinct female middle names and 2,381 distinct male middle names.
In some ways, names change dramatically over time. In the 1950s the name Ashley was rare for a girl. A generation later, it was one of the most popular names given to baby girls. Many of the Ashleys parents no doubt thought they were giving their girl an unusual name because when they were children, they didnt know any girls named Ashley. A few years after their babies were born, though, kindergarten classes sprouted Ashleys.
Some names that were almost unheard of 20 years ago are very popular today. For example, in 1985 the boys name Ethan had a popularity rating of 1.9. Now its the most popular name in western Canada and fourth overall in the U.S. and Canada with a popularity rating of 9.62. Another example is the girls name Ava, which had a popularity of 0.1 in the mid-1980s but shot up to eighth place in the early 21st century with a popularity rating of 6.91.
Naming is influenced by many factors, such as social factors, like what our ancestors were named or what our peers are naming their children, and cultural sources such as television, film, and books. For example, the names Draco and Hermione, first names of characters in the Harry Potter book series, have increased in popularity over the last decade, from being almost unheard of in North America to having current popularities of .01 and .02 respectively. While low, these popularity ratings mean approximately 23 baby boys were named Draco last year and about 44 baby girls were named Hermione. Interestingly, over the last decade the name Harry has decreased slightly in popularity, from a rating of .21 in the mid-1990s to .15 today, showing that culture can affect a names popularity in inexplicable ways. Like many trends, names seem to simply go in and out of fashion. For example, the name Tina rose from a rank of 488 in the first decade of the 1900s to 30th place in the 1960s and 1970s and has since fallen to a current rank of 709.
One of the ways that parents achieve singularity in their childs name is through spelling. Often parents choose or invent an unusual spelling for a well-known name. For example, I found 72 different spellings for the girls name Abigail, which has a popularity rating of 7.27 per thousand girls when spelled that way, including Abagael, Abagail, Abagaile, Abagaiyle, Abagale, Abagayl, Abagayle, and so on, not to mention all the spelling variations for Abby.
