9BabyNamesBaby names with meanings & US popularity data
Press Kit
Quote-ready facts, founder bio, fact sheet, and citation formats for journalists, podcasters, researchers, and editors covering baby naming. Free to reference with attribution to 9babynames.com.
Fact Sheet
19,862+
Curated baby names
65,411
SSA popularity records
146
Years of history (1880–2025)
2,999
Famous-people biographies
9BabyNames is an independent, ad-supported research site covering US and international baby naming. The site is run by founder Marvin Tang with no editorial board, no investor pressure, and no daily content quota. Its central data asset is a complete 146-year copy of the US Social Security Administration's Beyond the Top 1000 Names dataset, which we render as year-by-year popularity charts on every matching name page and use as the source for our research reports.
Quote-Ready Facts
Click Copy on any statement below to copy the full quote (with source attribution) to your clipboard. All facts are independently verifiable from the SSA dataset at ssa.gov/oact/babynames.
Mary held the #1 most-popular US girls' name rank in 76 separate years between 1880 and 1961 — the longest dominance of any single name in the SSA's 145-year baby-naming record. Source: 9BabyNames analysis of SSA national data, accessible at https://9babynames.com/methodology.
Linda peaked in 1947 at 99,693 US births in a single year — the highest single-year count for any girls' name in 145 years of SSA records. The post-WWII baby-boom era produced naming spikes that have not been matched in the modern era. Source: 9BabyNames analysis of SSA national data, https://9babynames.com.
Liam took just 7 years to climb from US #30 in 2010 to #1 in 2017, and has held #1 every year since (2017–2025) — one of the fastest sustained ascents to the top of the boys' list in the modern era. Source: 9BabyNames analysis of SSA national data.
As of 2025, the most-popular US baby names are Liam (boys, 22,164 births) and Olivia (girls, 14,718 births). The total gap between #1 boys and #1 girls births reflects a long-term pattern: girls' name diversity has expanded faster than boys', so the modal girls' name commands less of the total pool. Source: 9BabyNames analysis of SSA national data.
Theodore climbed from US boys' rank #259 in 2010 to #4 in 2025 — a 255-place gain in 14 years and one of the largest sustained climbs of any historically traditional name in the modern record. Mateo, Oliver, and Henry show similar 60–215 place climbs in the same window. Source: 9BabyNames analysis of SSA national data.
John held the #1 most-popular US boys' name rank in 44 separate years between 1880 and 1923 — a generational dominance that ended when Robert briefly displaced it in the 1920s. John has not returned to #1 since. Source: 9BabyNames analysis of SSA national data.
9BabyNames maintains a 65,411-row copy of the US Social Security Administration's baby-names dataset, covering 146 consecutive years (1880–2025). The dataset is public-domain federal data, free for any use; we render it as year-by-year charts on every name page and as the source for our annual research reports. Source: ssa.gov/oact/babynames; aggregated and visualized at 9babynames.com.
The SSA dataset suppresses any name-year-gender combination with fewer than 5 occurrences for privacy reasons — meaning ultra-rare names appear inconsistently across years even when they were genuinely used. Researchers analyzing rare-name trends should treat below-5-threshold gaps as privacy suppression, not data absence. Source: ssa.gov/oact/babynames; documented at https://9babynames.com/methodology.
Pre-1936 SSA naming data is incomplete by design: the Social Security Number system was created in 1936, so 19th-century records exist only for individuals who lived long enough to apply for an SSN. This produces a survivorship bias against rare names and against early-deceased populations. Source: 9BabyNames Methodology page, https://9babynames.com/methodology.
9BabyNames is an independent baby-naming research site run by founder Marvin Tang since the early 2010s. It maintains a 19,862-name dictionary, a 65,411-record SSA popularity dataset, and a 2,999-entry famous-people database, all rendered as free public resources. Reach the founder at [email protected].
Founder Bio
Marvin Tang is the founder and sole editor of 9BabyNames. He is a software engineer who has been building name-research websites since the early 2010s, and runs 9BabyNames alongside its sister sites covering dog naming, pet naming, and other naming-research topics. His editorial focus is on bringing authoritative public data (US SSA, Census records, government open data) into name-research formats that parents, journalists, and researchers can actually use.
For interviews, custom data extracts, or quote-ready statements on baby-naming trends not covered above, please email [email protected] with your outlet, deadline, and topic.
Citation Formats
APA (7th edition)
Tang, M. (2026). 9BabyNames baby-naming research site. https://9babynames.com/
Source: 9BabyNames — https://9babynames.com/ (compiled from US SSA public-domain data).
Use Rights
All facts and figures on this page are free to reference for editorial, educational, and research purposes with credit to 9babynames.com. SSA-derived figures should additionally credit the Social Security Administration as the underlying data source. For commercial bulk-licensing of charts or custom data extracts, please contact us via the contact page.
