Where ARE these top 10 names?

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-14-2003
Where ARE these top 10 names?
11
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 5:12pm

Hey everyone! I teach Kndergarten and I have a class of 21 kids. Only 1 of these kids has a top-10 name and none of the names are repeats. Do you think this is part of the trend towards people choosing less popular names?

I just don't seem to hear those top-10 names as often as you would think I would. For example, Emily is #1 in my area for the past 5 years and I only know 1 Emily under the age of 5.

What do you baby namers think?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 5:37pm

It might be the demographics of your particular area or even just a random occurrence, because if the name is #1 in your area, the kids with those names have to be somewhere!

I have noticed that sometimes the top names in the US are different from the top names in our state. Also, some of the top names in our state (Arizona, so lots of Hispanic names) are not popular in our particular area of the state, but popular in other areas. I imagine that name demographics can change by county as much as by state or country.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-28-2003
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 6:17pm

I still hear plenty of most of the top ten names. The worst offenders Emma (#2), Madison (#3), Isabella (#6), Hannah (#7). I hear plenty of the boys names as well, but I think they don't stand out as much as a trend is because I may know a few Christophers under the age of 5, but I know dozens of others that are older and have heard the name constantly so it doesn't stand out as much as a new trendy name (see Madison).

Some I still just rarely hear: Emily, Daniel and Anthony. I know few if any young kids with these names. I guess they are being born somewhere, I easily know 10 Sams (#21) under the age of 7, and 5 or 6 Jacks (#34), but not a single Daniel (#7).

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2005
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 6:58pm

Well technically, you'd be looking for the top ten names from the years those kids were born, so more like:

1 Jacob Emily
2 Michael Madison
3 Matthew Hannah
4 Joshua Ashley
5 Christopher Alexis
6 Nicholas Sarah
7 Andrew Samantha
8 Joseph Abigail
9 Daniel Elizabeth
10 William Olivia

*These are the top ten names from 2001 (when my own Kindergartener was born). The 2000 list also included Jessica and Taylor for girls and Tyler for boys.

So while many of them are the same, you'd be more likely to have a class full of little girls named Alexis, Sarah, Jessica, Taylor or Elizabeth than Emma, Isabella or Ava, KWIM? The boys tend to change less year-to-year, but Tyler, Nicholas and William have since moved out of the top ten, so they'd be more common to hear on a five-year-old than a newborn, whereas Anthony and Ethan would be more common on an infant.

That said, I also agree with the pps who mentioned these national statistics not being reflective of every area. Obviously, certain names will be more or less popular depending on the city/state you live in. I happen to have a five-year-old named Kaitlyn, and the only other one I've ever known is now in her twenties. There are no others in her class (and I didn't see any others on the artwork from the other classes, although I'm sure there has to be one somewhere), and we rarely hear it when we're at a playground, store, restaurant, etc., so it definitely depends on your area.

~Kelli


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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-23-2004
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 7:25pm

FWIW, there isn't any Kaitlyn's that I know of in my kid's school of approx. 150 kids. I do have a niece Katlyn that is 8 and in Logan's swimming class there was a Kaitlyn (not sure how it was spelled), she would be 3. :)

Terra.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2005
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 7:38pm

Oh, goody! Good to hear ... and I guess we'd be safe if we ever moved up that way. It doesn't seem very popular where dh's family lives (IL) either, but then I don't have a child in school out there so who knows? LOL

~Kelli


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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-10-2006
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 7:45pm
If you look at the actual numbers of children given a particular name (as opposed to the rank) you'll see that is very much the trend - especially among girls. There is less of a concentration of numbers in the top 10.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2006
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 8:27pm

I actually read an article online somewhere saying just that.

 
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-14-2003
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 9:20pm

Kelli,

The 2001 list for my area is slightly different, since I live in Canada. My province publishes the top 10 baby names every year, and I was looking at the 2001 list from my province.

Steph

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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-14-2003
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 9:25pm

They do have that info for my area as well as the ranking. But I find it hard to interpret because I don't know what the TOTAL # of babies born was, to see the percentage. Seems like the highest names on the lists are about 250 babies with that name. That is in an area with a population of about 2 million. But how many babies were born that year? They don't say.

I just wonder if that is part of it or if part of it is just random - like one class I taught there were only 10 kids - and of them there were 2 Madisons! I know the name is popular but it's kind of strange nonetheless.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2005
Tue, 10-10-2006 - 9:38pm

There is absolutely a smaller percentage of children now with a top 5 name than there has been in the past. Parents are branching out and choosing from a wider variety of names. Especially with girls. But I still hear those top names pretty frequently.

Popular names definitely vary by state (as the state list show) and it also varies from area to area. I live in a progressive, liberal college town that is always ahead of the trends. Here, for instance, our Emmas, Hannahs, and Madisons are mostly 10+ years old. The new babies have names lower down the list, names that are rising quickly -- Charlotte, Amelia, Lucy, Evelyn, etc. But the area where I grew up was always a few years behind the trends. I would guess that the bulk of babies being born there right now are still receiving the top names from the mid-late 90s. (Ashley, Jessica, Taylor, etc)

There are also specific names that are particularly popular in certains towns or regions due to an associaton that isn't national. For instance, I know half a dozen children (girls and boys) named Kenan. That's not even on the top 1000 list, but the Kenans are an influential family around here and their name is ubiquitous (Kenan-Flagler School of Business, Kenan Stadium, etc.) so regionally, it's quite popular. The same can be said of Ansley, which ranks #653 for girls nationally, but is #44 in Georgia thanks to the influence of the Ansley family.

That's a long way of saying: the SSA numbers are a fantastic source for tracking trends. But they aren't flawless. There are a lot of other factors that should be considered.




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