Name data: U.S. and U.K.

I can’t believe I haven’t yet posted here on the blog about the 2019 name data that was (finally!) released by the Social Security Administration a couple of weeks ago! (The first few weeks of school always have me in a dither — it always takes me until Thanksgiving every year to finally feel like I have my bearings.)

You’ve probably already seen, but here are the new top ten names:

Of note, Emma dropped down a spot from no. 1 (after 5 years in the top spot), and Ethan replaced Logan. Abby from Appellation Mountain did a few good posts that you’ll want to read (here, here, here for starters — and more! Scroll through her most recent posts to find them all!).

I did post on Instagram a quick thought after taking a first look through the new data, since I was delighted to see that 55 of the girl names that rose the most and 23 of the boy names that rose the most are in my book of Marian names! Here are a few that jumped out at me:

Girl

Olivia
Amelia
Isla
Ava
Mia
Isabella
Sophia
Grace
Lily
Freya

Boy

Oliver
George
Noah
Arthur
Harry
Leo
Muhammad
Jack
Charlie
Oscar

Similar to ours, and different, too! The two outliers — Freya and Muhammad (the most popular spellings of both names; Freyja, Mohammad, and Mohammed all made the top 1000 as well) — came in at no. 200 and 336, respectively, in our own data. There’s a little Freya in one of my boys’ classes this year, which is the first time I’ve ever encountered the name in real life.

I’m curious, though, about your perception of “British” names — what names would you say come across as the “most British”? On the above lists, Harry and Arthur are the only ones that I might put in that category, and only depending on what their siblings’ names are. Some others that fit that category for me (again, often dependent on siblings’ names) are Lewis, Alistair, Imogen, and Gillian. Do you agree? Happy Thursday!

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon — perfect for expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady!

2019 Name Data Delay, and the Best Mother’s Day Gift

May 7, 2020 sanctanomina My book: Marian baby names, Naming nitty gritty Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady, Marian baby names, Marian names, SSA data

You guys! The release of the new (2019) name data from the Social Security Administration, which namiacs look forward to all year, and which is always released the Friday before Mother’s Day, is being postponed indefinitely! The SSA site says:

“Out of respect and honor for all people and families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the announcement of the 2019 most popular baby names is being rescheduled to a to-be-determined date. The agency sends its gratitude and heartfelt thanks to everybody fighting the pandemic and providing vital services throughout the country during these difficult times.”

I’m so surprised! I might have thought this would fall more along the lines of, “Give people a welcome, lighthearted distraction to keep their spirits up.” Also, I figured it would just be a matter of running a program and posting the results? That is, not too much manpower or time required by the people at SSA? Pam at Nameberry gave a little more insight in her latest post (as well as the history of this “Baby Name Christmas,” as she calls it, which I didn’t know — very interesting!). When I know more, I’ll let you know!

In the meantime, maybe you’d like to take a look at my past posts about the annual SSA data — I’m never great at spotting trends or analyzing data, but I include in my posts links to the people that *are* great at that:

Also, with Mother’s Day this weekend, I just wanted to remind you all about my book! 💃💃💃 It’s a book of baby names and it’s a book of and for Our Lady — sounds like a perfect Mother’s Day gift to me! 😊 Amazon is saying that Prime delivery won’t get it to you until Tuesday if ordered today, but if your family/friend are like mine, just write up a little card letting the mom you’re giving it to know that it’s on its way and you’ll be good!

BABY (1)

Have a great Thursday! 🌹💙🌹💙🌹💙🌹💙🌹💙🌹💙🌹💙

A big week for names!

May 11, 2019 sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty Giveaway, Royal baby, SSA data

Happy Mother’s Day weekend!! Don’t forget to enter the Massive Mother’s Day Giveaway — it ends tonight at midnight! I’ll email the winner tomorrow!

Also, if you could help Charlotte, please do — she’s in a desperate state with her health and being unable to afford proper medical care, she just can’t get ahead of it and is really suffering.

Did you all see the 2018 name stats that were released yesterday by the Social Security Administration? Were you surprised by any in the top ten?

2018topten

A few people over on Instagram expressed surprise over Evelyn being no. 10, which is funny, because it was actually at no. 9 in 2017 — it dropped a spot in 2018 — and I wrote about it in my post on the 2017 data last year:

“From your comments on Instagram, Evelyn also seems to be surprising to some of you. As I mentioned on IG, when my 13yo was three, one of his classmates’ mom had a baby girl whom she named Evelyn, and back then I thought it sounded like such an old lady name. Turns out it entered the top 100 in 2002 for the first time since 1953 and in fact is now, at no. 9, the most popular it’s ever been — its previous highest was no. 10 in 1915. In my mind, it’s part of the Evangeline/Genevieve/Vivian-nicknamed-Evie/Vivi sisters. And in fact Evie increased in 2017 as well!“

I haven’t looked at all the new data yet, but I was perusing the list of names that increased in popularity last night and was so surprised that Genesis was the boy name with the greatest increase in 2018: it went up 608 spots from no. 1592 to 984, entering the top 1000. That’s a big increase! And I don’t know what it was caused by! I did a quick search to see if something happened in 2017 or 2018 to cause such a spike in interest, and did discover that Alicia Keys has a son named Genesis, but he was born in 2014, so I don’t think he was the catalyst.

I was telling my hubs about Genesis last night, which he too was shocked by (he didn’t even know parents were naming their kids Genesis, so he’s not the best gauge), but he also asked a great question: he wanted to know how many births that jump in popularity actually represented. So I looked that up and there were 209 baby boys born in 2018 that were named Genesis, up from 101 in 2017. That’s not a huge amount of babies. Also, Genesis for a girl is vastly more popular — 4068 girls born in 2018 named Genesis, and the spelling Jenesis for girls actually increased 121 spots, from 1087 to 966, entering the top 1000. Quite a year for G/Jenesis!

I was also interested that Meghan was the girl name that increased the most in popularity, up 701 spots from 1404 to 703 and certainly due to Prince Harry’s Mrs. Speaking of Prince Harry and his Mrs. … what about Harry’s and Meghan’s baby boy?? I couldn’t wait to find out what they named him! As I mentioned on Instagram, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor was so unexpected to me, but I expected his name to be unexpected, so I guess Harry and Meghan delivered! I loved Harrison for Harry’s son from the moment I read it, perfection! Archie and similar names are trendy in the UK right now, and turns out Archie entered the top 1000 in the US in 2018, so that makes it a good mix of British and American to me. (I did just read that Archie was the name of Meghan’s childhood cat … I’m not sure what to think of that.)

Back to the SSA data, I’m sure I’ll have more to say after I finish looking through it all, but in the meantime, I loved reading Abby’s take, as always, as well as Laura Wattenberg’s (the Baby Name Wizard, who has a new web site and a new name!) and Nameberry’s.

Also, I have a great consultation to post on Monday for a mama who’s familiar to many of you and who’s expecting baby no. 10 — I know you’ll all love it!

Finally, just a tip for any of you still looking for a present for the moms in your life: my book is a fantastic gift! And though it won’t be delivered by tomorrow if you order today (unless you pay a million dollars in shipping, depending on where you live), you could always order it and then print out a picture of it to put in the Mother’s Day card you give your mom/wife/whoever, with a promise that it’s in the mail! 😉

Have a great rest of the weekend!! ❤ ❤ ❤

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon — perfect for the expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady in your life!

New SSA name stats! And some Mother’s Day goodies <3

May 12, 2018May 12, 2018 sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty Giveaway, Mary, Men Who Love Mary, SSA data

(I have a memory of an email conversation that I had just recently where I told the mama I could fit her in in the next couple of days, but I forgot to write it down and I can’t find the email … if this sounds like you, please email me again! So sorry!)

(Also, did you listen to my spot on Coffee & Donuts with John & Mary? If not, go do it! I’m on from about the 15 minute mark to about the 24 minute mark.)

Happy Mother’s Day!! Every year right before Mother’s Day the Social Security Administration (SSA) releases the data on the first names given to the babies born the following year. Yesterday, 2017’s data was released!

2017topten

My first thought was amazement on seeing Logan at no. 5! He didn’t creep in stealthily at no. 10, but jumped right to no. 5 from no. 18! Wow! This seems to be entirely due to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine movie Logan, which was released in March 2017.

From your comments on Instagram, Evelyn also seems to be surprising to some of you. As I mentioned on IG, when my 13yo was three, one of his classmates’ mom had a baby girl whom she named Evelyn, and back then I thought it sounded like such an old lady name. Turns out it entered the top 100 in 2002 for the first time since 1953 and in fact is now, at no. 9, the most popular it’s ever been — its previous highest was no. 10 in 1915. In my mind, it’s part of the Evangeline/Genevieve/Vivian-nicknamed-Evie/Vivi sisters. And in fact Evie increased in 2017 as well!

Besides the new top ten, I’m always interested to see which names increased and decreased in popularity. I haven’t been able to look through the decrease list as closely as I’d like to yet, but these things jumped out at me from the increase list:

From the boy names

I was interested to see that several names that are also used for girls increased. As the mom of all boys, I’m sensitive to how boys feel about having a name that’s also given to girls; the fact that all these rose in usage suggests to me that it’s not as big a deal as I might think: Rey, Jamie, Rowen/Rowan, Elliott/Elliot, Emory, Eden, Remy, Avery, Rory, Micah.

While Michael dropped out of the top ten for the first time since 1942 (!!), Mike increased in use! There were other classic male nicknames that rose in usage as well, including Tommy, Hank, Billy, and Jack.

It seems the letters “ax” are big, as evidenced by the increase in Jaxxon, Axton, Maxton, Jaxx, Dax, Axl/Axel, Jaxton, Daxton, Braxton (I only ever think “Hicks,” but it rose to no. 118, so it’s obviously not a deal breaker!), and Jaxson.

Through my Sancta Nomina glasses I noticed: Coleman, Magnus, Kyrie, Boone, Shepherd, Blaze, Thiago, Casey, Simeon (entered top 1000! Yesss!), Jasper, Milo/Myles, Agustin, Porter, Francis, Leo, Damien/Damian (woo!), Sebastian, Matias/Mathias/Matthias, Tadeo, and Sonny (which I love as a nickname for Solanus).

And just generally, these increases caught my eye: Caspian (no. 3 on the increase list! It entered top 1000), Lucian (a friend just named her son Lucian), Beau (this and Bo get some decent love here on the blog), Roger, Micheal (a misspelling of Michael? Or do that many people really love the Irish spelling?), Louis (note that it’s already on the rise — it’ll be interesting to see what little Prince Louis does for the name), Atticus (so glad to see the new Harper Lee book didn’t keep it down — it took a small hit the year after Go Set a Watchman came out, but in 2017 bounced back up to nearly the same spot in as it had been before all that), and Ledger (I’m currently digging word names, and while Ledger certainly brings actor Heath Ledger to mind, it’s also a noun).

From the girl names

I thought it was interesting that both Melania and Ivanna (that spelling) increased.

Also Oaklynn, Oaklyn, Oaklee, and Oakley!

Speaking of Oaklee and Oakley, the “lee” sound dominated the “increased in popularity” list! All of these increased in popularity in 2017: Ensley, Emberly, Paislee/Paisley, Everlee/Everleigh/Everly, Raylee, Zaylee, Kinslee/Kinsley, Kensley, Kenley, Kynlee, Harleigh, Journee, Hailee/Hayley/Haylee, Hallie/Halle, Charli/Charley/Charleigh/Charlie/Charlee, Emely, Novalee, Bexley, Finley, Marleigh/Marley, Callie/Kallie/Kali, Harley/Harlee, Rosalie, Brinley, Jolie, Blakely, Ryleigh/Rylee, Brynnlee, Bailee, Presley (interesting that Zaylee’s on this list but Zelie’s not!).

Names that increased for girls that have a counterpart (exact same or perhaps a different spelling) on the boys’ increase list: Sunny, Remy/Remi, Rory, Rowan, Eden, Avery, Elliott/Elliot.

Both Ryan and Ryann increased for girls — this caught my attention because in the consultation I posted last Monday, the mama noted they “are not open to gender neutral names (e.g. Ryan, Blake, etc)” and one of you commented on Facebook that you didn’t realize Ryan and Blake were now considered gender neutral. Funny enough, I mentioned a girl I know named Ryan yesterday and my 6yo goes, “What?! A *girl* named Ryan??” Despite its usage by girls it still feels like a boy name to me and I’m definitely not the only one. (Interestingly, Riaan was the no. 1 decreased boy’s name in 2017.)

I loved seeing Marianna, Giana, Evie, Magdalena, Maisie, Daisy, Dorothy, Juniper, Mercy, Regina, Genevieve on the increase list, as well as — Mary! Yessss!! She only increased one spot, but still! I’d said on the Coffee & Donuts with John & Mary segment (linked to above) that I didn’t think Mary itself would become more popular any time soon (it was recorded on Thursday), but I’d love to be proven wrong!

I feel really uncomfortable seeing Lilith on the increase list. I keep reminding myself that very few of those parents, if any, chose the name because of its dark background and instead probably like that it looks and sounds like an unusual Lily variant. Or perhaps they like the feminist angle to the story (which is why the Lilith Fair was so named). There’s a lot of evil lurking there though … Or maybe I’m giving the name too much power? On the lighter end, it’s not for nothing that Frasier’s wife on Frasier was named Lilith …

One name I’d never heard of increased: Yaretzi. It’s got a pretty great meaning according to Nameberry.

These struck me as the most recent members of the old-is-new club, all of them on the rise: Frida, Deborah, Eileen, Diana, and Nancy.

And these seemed too new to be back in fashion again, but they also rose in popularity: Jenny, Tara.

I’d love to hear what you all thought about the names that increased in popularity!

The one name that I did look into from the decrease list was thanks to one of you who commented on Instagram:

“you mentioned in your most recent Nameberry post that Montserrat was skyrocketing in 2014. Now in 2017 it’s amongst the top decreases, falling 225 spots. Was there something cultural or in pop culture to cause that name to boom in 2014 and fall so quickly?“

The 2014 increase of Montserrat, and its variant Monserrat, seems to have been due to a character by that name in the Mexican telenovela Lo que la vida me robó (What Life Took From Me). I wasn’t able to pinpoint exactly why it fell so much in 2017, but the story that kept showing up over and over again as I tried different search terms was that of the volcano on the island of Montserrat (different than the mountains in Spain from which Our Lady gets her title Our Lady of Montserrat) that leveled its capital city and left part of the island uninhabitable last time it erupted, and which may be showing signs of erupting again (here and here). Does anyone else have a better idea of why the name dropped?

Speaking of Marian names … One of my very favorite things this year was counting how many Marian names are in the top 100! Which gave me a great idea for a Mother’s Day giveaway! There are several names in the top 100 for both boys and girls that are included in my book of Marian names — the first three readers who email me at sanctanomina at gmail dot com with the most complete list of those names between now and next Saturday at midnight Eastern time will receive a copy of my book (signed by me if you’d like, though I totally get it if you’d rather not)! I hope you’re as excited to receive one of my books as I am to give them! I know you’ll all love it!

I also wanted to let you all know that I’m nearly done with a novena to St. Gerard that I started specifically for all of you. I’m asking him to pray for all of you readers, including those who are mothers or who want to be, and those who are hoping for a baby or are suffering from the loss of a baby or from infertility, as well as for all of your children, both living and deceased. St. Gerard has been close to us recently, and it seemed natural to pray a novena to him for you all. ❤

I hope you all have a wonderful Mother’s Day, whether you are a mother or not, and remember that Mary Our Mother loves you very much!

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady, is now available to order from ShopMercy.org (free shipping through today, May 12!) and Amazon! It’s a perfect Mother’s Day gift, as well as for baby showers and just because. If you feel moved to leave a review on Amazon, it would be greatly appreciated. 🙂 ❤

The link is live!

May 11, 2018May 11, 2018 sanctanomina Sancta Nomina Media Mater Dei Radio, SSA data

I shared yesterday that I have a short interview with host Mary on Coffee & Donuts with John & Mary airing on Mater Dei Radio tonight at 7:30 Pacific (10:30 Eastern [my time]). It’s also already been uploaded to iTunes — you can listen to it here! I’m off to do so right now! And stay tuned for my thoughts on the new Social Security 2017 data released today — I posted about it on Instagram and have been enjoying seeing the conversation on IG and Twitter today! I hope to put some thoughts up here tomorrow. Happy Mother’s Day weekend!

coffee&donuts_with_john&mary

A few thoughts on the new name stats from the SSA

May 16, 2017May 16, 2017 sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty SSA data

If you haven’t already, be sure to read my Mother’s Day post (there’s a giveaway)!

I think one of the things I loved the most about the Social Security Administration releasing the 2016 name stats last Friday was seeing how excited Abby from Appellation Mountain was! That morning on Facebook she revealed how she’d been refreshing the SSA site all morning in hopes they’d finally updated it … then when they did she pretty immediately posted a video of her talking about the results (she mentioned some names I’ve had discussions about recently, like Matteo and Shepherd), and has posted a couple great articles analyzing the results:

Most Popular Baby Names – May 2017 Update (mostly discussion of the new-not-new top ten)
Top 100 Baby Names May 2017 Update

I also really enjoyed these from the Baby Name Wizard:

America’s Fastest-Rising Boys’ Names: Feel the Force
The Fastest-Rising Girls’ Names of The Year

And found this one (also from BNW) really interesting:

Caitlyn at the Crossroads: The Fastest-Falling Baby Names of the Year

Laura starts out by saying, “At first glance, this wholesale retreat from a familiar name may seem to be a rejection of Jenner’s new public identity,” which was exactly what I would assume it to be, but I also appreciated that she pointed out, “The name was sliding out of fashion, and it’s easiest to move the public in a direction it’s already heading.” She also makes the good point that, “The name itself was the story, announced with a flourish in a ‘Call Me Caitlyn’ magazine cover, the choice of name debated and analyzed” — a million percent yes! — but then argues, “The result was inevitable Caitlyn fatigue,” which I strongly disagree with. I would characterize the fact that the name was already “sliding out of fashion” as name fatigue; I would describe what happened in the wake of Caitlyn Jenner (which Laura herself called a “wholesale retreat”) as name train wreck. Take a look at these numbers:

caitlyn_et_al-2016 — From https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/rankchange.html

This screenshot is from the newest statistics, and they’re listed in order of greatest amount of decrease to least amount of decrease, so these four names were the four biggest drops of all the girls’ names in use in the U.S. I was amazed to see this! I mean, all four of those variants were well into the top 1000 (except Kaitlynn, which was hovering on the line), and all four dropped out of the top 1000 in one year.

To be fair, I tried to find the decrease stats from last year, to see if this isn’t as big a deal as it looks like to me, and found a post Nancy had done that showed Isis as the biggest loser in 2015, having dropped 1065 spots, but in the top ten biggest decreases were also Annabell (500 spots), Anabel (500 spots), Anabella (333 spots), and Anabelle (272 spots), which I thought were good parallels for the Caitlyn names, since they were also four variants of the same name, and all dropped similar amounts to the Caitlyn names — in fact, not to get all math-y, but I did the math and the four Caitlyn names dropped a cumulative 1787 spots (averaging 446.75 each), while the Annabell names dropped a cumulative 1605 spots (averaging 401.25 each). This might not seem like anything except that Nancy noted, “nearly every single variant of Annabelle was negatively affected by the horror film Annabelle, released in late 2014.” So Caitlyn’s no Isis, but had a similar effect as a horror movie. Oh dear.

(For the record, I still love the name.)

(There are also other variants of both names lower down in the decrease list, I just focused on those in the top ten.)

(Also interesting in light of our Damien discussion is that until now I hadn’t heard a whisper of that horror movie, despite having freely and frequently suggested Annabel(le) to parents on the blog and in private consultations.)

I’m also not sure I agree with this point, which I’ve seen a lot of other people say as well: “Finally, consider that the Caitlyn gazing out of that famous magazine cover was 65 years old. Caitlyn became popular as a fresh, youthful twist on Catherine and Kathleen. The new standard-bearer for the name helped age it in a hurry.” I just don’t see the name Caitlyn as having aged at all, I still see it as a young-ish name that is now worn by a 67 year old, which is as jarring to me as hearing other names that were similar in popularity to the Caitlyn names during the Caitlyn names’ peak (1990s), like Lindsey and Kristen, on a grandmother. Do you agree?

Otherwise, I took a look through the rest of the changes (changes in increase as well as decrease, and those that stayed the same), which I found to be the most interesting part of the statistics, and didn’t find anything as interesting as Aranza and Mon(t)serrat of 2014 except for Mercy for the girls — it’s no. 21 on the list of girls’ names that rose the most, having increased 222 spots from out of the top 1000 to well in it (new no. 731) and all I think is: Jubilee Year of Mercy! 😍 Zaylee also increased 177 spots to no. 813 (which may be due to St. Zelie?), and Regina, Rosemary, Juniper, Clementine, Mabel, Colette, Edith, Siena, Livia, Adelaide, Aurora, Helen, Felicity, and Gianna caught my eye from those names that increased in popularity.

For the boys Augustine went up 87 spots to no. 728, Santiago went up 21 to no. 106 (what? I had NO idea it was that popular!), and Thaddeus, Matthias, Conrad, Fisher, Gilbert, Bennett, George, Oliver, Henry, Jasper, Harold, Oscar, and Roman (which is new to the top 100) all jumped out at me as well.

On the decrease list, Guadalupe, Madeleine, Lola, Catherine and Katherine and Kate, Genevieve, and Mary stood out to me for girls, and Blaise, Mohammed, Damien (though still a top 300 name) and Damian (though still not too far from top 100), Myles, and Jude for boys.

Also Sylvie is up while Sylvia is down, which seems right to me based on where the collective taste seems to be at the moment. Do you agree?

Did any of the rest of you wait on pins and needles for this new info? Did you find anything exciting or disappointing? Any other thoughts/analyses?

Do you have a Zelie born in 2015?

May 28, 2016May 28, 2016 sanctanomina Real-life naming Catholic baby names, French names, Sancta Nomina name stats, SSA data

I was just catching up on emails and FB posts and saw that one of you wonderful readers, mama to a Zelie, wondered (in response to my article about Zelie/Zaylee) how many readers welcomed a Zelie/[other spelling] in 2015? There were 50 of them born in America in 2015 and my theory is that many/most of them have some connection to our Sancta Nomina community (either readers of the blog or friends/relatives of readers). Add yourself in the comments if you qualify! 😀

Popularity of Zelie in 2015

May 6, 2016May 6, 2016 sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty SSA data

Because of Zaylee appearing in the top 1000 in 2015 and the comments (here and here) on my post from this morning regarding Zelie/Zaylee I looked up Zaylee, Zelie, Zellie, and Azelie, and discovered Azaylee as well!, to see how many babies were so named in 2015:

Azaylee: 9
Azelie: 17
Zaylee: 270 (rank #990)
Zelie: 50
Zellie: 12

It was interesting to compare the numbers to 2014:

Azaylee: 7
Azelie: 6
Zaylee: 182
Zelie: 25
Zellie: 9

Azaylee’s making me think (as the other Kate pointed out) that the popularity of Zaylee may indeed be influenced by St. Zelie. Fascinating!

Updated to add the numbers for Azelia, which Andrea included in her comment at the same time I was posting this! There were 24 babies named Azelia in 2014 and 25 in 2015. (She also included info for Therese and Louis, if you’re interested — there was no significant impact on either one.) Thanks Andrea!

2015 SSA name data released

May 6, 2016May 6, 2016 sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty SSA data

For the past week or so I’d been seeing the name bloggers eagerly anticipating the release of the 2015 name stats from the Social Security Administration — it’s only because of them that I knew it was going to happen today, because I’m the absolute worst at being in the know and at the right place at the right time and the first one with the breaking news and all — I was actually stressed out at the idea of having to blog about it quickly and though I’d wait until tomorrow to do it. I’m so. weird.

But I took a look at the list this morning, and had a couple things to say so I thought I *would* post about it today after all, as I should, being a name blogger and all, and I’d love to hear your thoughts too!

2015_top_ten

My first reaction was absolute shock that Harper is now in the top ten for girls. Wow! I had NO idea it was that popular!!

Noah and Emma retained their #1 spots, and I’m feeling surprised by that because the people I discuss names with (mostly all of you) tend to stay away from those names because of past popularity, so all I hear about them is that they’re generally not being used. But they’re great names and pretty “normal” (not like Abcde, for example), so I’m not disappointed that they’re the names on top.

I also took a quick look at the names that increased in popularity from 2014 — Alaia had the biggest increase for girls, jumping up 2012 spots from #2676 in 2014 to #664 in 2015! WOW!! Others that jumped up more than a thousand places are Meilani, Aitana, Aislinn, Taya, and Adeline (I love Aislinn and Adeline).

The boy name with the biggest increase is Riaan, up 1360 spots from #2286 in 2014 to #926 in 2015. No other boy names increased by a thousand or more — the next closest was Huxley, up 392 spots from 1354 to 962.

I didn’t scrutinize the list, but the other name that jumped out at me was Zaylee — #1304 to #990. I can’t imagine that’s influenced by our St. Zelie, since so many of us aren’t even sure how to say it, so I assume it’s a Baylee/Kaylee name … what a weird and interesting convergence of super Catholic and super trendy!

No shock at all was the fact that the girl name Isis took the biggest hit, decreasing 1065 spots from #705 to #1770. Maybe I’m surprised it didn’t fall farther?

That’s all I have to say for the moment, but be sure to check out those who have a better handle on it all than I do — some good analysis in these pieces, and more will be coming in the next few days I’m sure:

Appellation Mountain: Harper and Benjamin Enter the US Top Ten! (Abby had made some great predictions — including that both Harper and Benjamin would enter the top ten! Wow!)

Nameberry: Emma and Noah Top Baby Names List … Again

Baby Name Wizard: The Most Popular Baby Names in America for 2015

Most popular names (et al.) of 2014 announced today

May 8, 2015May 8, 2015 sanctanomina Including Mary, Naming nitty gritty Catholic baby names, Confirmation names, Mary, SSA data

So the name world has been holding its breath in gleeful, frantic anticipation of the release by the Social Security Administration of 2014’s most popular names — and this morning it happened! (Which you probably all know already anyway, because the first to know and share I am not and likely never will be.)

Of note:

Emma and Noah are the #1’s
Charlotte entered the top ten — in the year before the princess was born. It’s been hot hot hot for a while
The three fastest rising girl names are Aranza, Montserrat, and Monserrat (from telenovelas)
The fastest rising boy name is Bode (like Olympian Bode Miller)
The fastest falling names included Miley, Britney, and Rihanna; Carmelo and Channing

I’m not a number cruncher or a trend spotter (like Abby: here and here), so I have no further analysis than my bullets above (which were spelled out in the article), but I will say: Mother Mary did pretty darn well for herself.

Consider that Mia and Ava are both in the top ten — neither necessarily Marian, but they could be, with Mia having traditional use as a nickname for Maria (see Mia Farrow, born the gorgeously reverent Maria de Lourdes) and Ava being a variant of Eve (like how Mary’s the New Eve). I’ve also seen Ava paired with Maria in Catholic families because of Ava Maria’s similarity to Ave Maria (Hail Mary in Latin).

And those fastest rising girls’ names are not actually “rooted in Latin soap operas” as was asserted in the article — certainly I get that their use in the telenovelas is what made them spike in popularity here, but their roots are Marian — Aranza is a diminutive of Aran(t)zazu, from a Basque word meaning “thornbush,” stemming from an apparition of Our Lady on a thornbush in Spain; Montserrat and its alternate spelling Monserrat are also used to honor Our Lady, as there’s a Marian shrine in Montserrat and the associated title Our Lady of Montserrat. (Weirdly enough, I did a consultation recently for a mama who asked for unusual Catholic names, and Arantxa was one I gave her, which is also a diminutive of Arantzazu. Never in a trillion years did I think Arantxa’s sister Aranza would be in the list of top 1000 girls’ names in the U.S.!)

So that’s what this Catholic baby name lover gets out of the new SSA stats! My final word: Mother Mary for the win! 😉 ❤