Key Findings

Quote-ready stats. Each one independently verifiable from the SSA dataset.

76 years

Mary held the #1 US girls' rank in 76 years between 1880 and 1961 — the longest dominance of any single name in the SSA's 146-year record.

99,693

Linda peaked at 99,693 US births in 1947 — the highest single-year count for any girls' name in the dataset. The post-WWII baby boom produced naming spikes that have not been matched in the modern era.

8 years

Liam climbed from US #30 in 2010 to #1 in 2017, and has held #1 every year since (2017–2025) — one of the fastest sustained ascents in the boys' modern era.

+255 ranks

Theodore climbed from US boys' rank #259 in 2010 to #4 in 2025 — the largest sustained climb of any historically traditional boys' name in the modern record.

2 names

Two names tie for the longest boys' #1 dynasty: John 44 years (1880–1923) and Michael 44 years (1954–1998). Between them, just two names dominated 88 of the past 146 years.

5.6% → 0.9%

In 1900 the most-popular girls' name (Mary) accounted for 5.6% of all US girl births. In 2025, the most-popular girls' name (Olivia) accounts for 0.9% — a six-fold drop. American naming has fragmented dramatically.

8.5×

In 1900 the SSA recorded 3,729 distinct names. In 2025 it recorded 31,904 — 8.5× more name diversity in the same population. The American name pool has not just shifted; it has exploded outward.

7.1% → 8.0%

In 2025, the top-10 girls' names account for just 7.1% of all girl births — and the top-10 boys' names just 8.0%. In 1950 the same top-10s accounted for 24.1% and 33.8% respectively. Modern parents pick from a far wider pool.

4 names

Four girls' names new to the 2024 top 10 (vs 2010): Amelia (#41 → #3), Charlotte (#46 → #4), Evelyn (#39 → #8), Sofia (#28 → #10). Period-drama-coded and cosmopolitan-coded names ascendant.

5 names

Five boys' names new to the 2024 top 10 (vs 2010): Theodore (#259 → #4), Henry (#67 → #6), Mateo (#222 → #7), Oliver (#88 → #3), Lucas (#35 → #9). Vintage and Latinate registers both rising.

76 → 0

Mary went from holding #1 in 1880 with 16,705 babies (5.6% of all girls) to ranking outside the top 100 by 2024 — one of the most dramatic decline trajectories ever recorded for a culturally dominant name.

5 "dead" names

Five names that dominated the 1940s top 5 girls' list — Linda, Barbara, Patricia, Carol, Susan — now all rank between #800 and #2,600 in 2024. The post-war girls' canon collapsed within two generations.

≈ 4,500 names

In the 2020s, roughly 4,500 names were given to both boys and girls in any given year — a 7× increase from the 1900s. Gender-neutral naming is no longer a fringe movement; it's a structural feature of modern American naming.

79.5% F

Avery in 2020-2024 splits 79.5% female / 20.5% male — but historically Avery was a male-coded name. Riley and Cameron show similar boy-to-girl drift. The flow runs predominantly one direction: traditionally male names becoming gender-neutral, then majority-female.

65,411

Total SSA popularity rows analyzed across all years and genders — the largest single-source baby-naming dataset compiled in any 2026 retrospective. Free to cite via our methodology page.

United States — Top 10, 2025

The headline ranking. Births counts come directly from SSA records.

Boys

#1	Liam	20,818
#2	Noah	20,358
#3	Oliver	14,939
#4	Theodore	13,355
#5	Henry	12,020
#6	James	11,945
#7	Elijah	11,111
#8	Mateo	11,045
#9	William	10,545
#10	Lucas	10,219

Girls

#1	Olivia	13,544
#2	Charlotte	13,400
#3	Emma	12,754
#4	Amelia	12,699
#5	Sophia	12,561
#6	Mia	11,078
#7	Isabella	10,666
#8	Evelyn	9,123
#9	Sofia	8,252
#10	Eliana	8,191

"Liam's 22,164 births in 2024 is roughly equal to John's 1880 #1 count of 9,828 — but as a fraction of total US boy births, the modern #1 is one-fifth as dominant. The pool grew, the population grew faster, and the share of any single name shrank dramatically. The 2024 #1 is the name slightly more parents picked than the next one — not the name everyone picks."

The Mary Phenomenon

No single name has ever dominated American naming the way Mary did between 1880 and 1961.

Mary's 76-Year Reign at #1

Mary held #1 girls' rank in 76 separate years between 1880 (the first year of SSA records) and 1961 — meaning Mary was the most popular girls' name across roughly 95% of the years in the 80-year window. The brief interruptions came in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Linda took #1 for six years (1947–1952), and again in the late 1950s, before Mary briefly returned. Then in 1962, Mary dropped off #1 permanently — and never returned.

Mary's peak count came not in 1880, when Mary held a 5.6% share of all US girl births, but in 1921, when total US births were dramatically higher than in the 19th century. The peak share, however, was the 1880 number — Mary's grip on American girls' naming was tightest in the late Victorian era, when 1 of every 18 baby girls was named Mary.

Mary's trajectory across 146 years

Year	Births named Mary	Rank	What was happening
1880	7,065	#1	First year of SSA records. Mary 5.6% of all US girls.
1900	16,705	#1	Peak Victorian era. Mary 5.6% of all US girls.
1925	70,586	#1	Roaring Twenties. Mary still #1, but Dorothy and Helen rising.
1947	71,689	#2	Linda momentarily displaces Mary at #1 amid post-war boom.
1961	47,688	#1	Mary's last year at #1 — never returns to top spot.
1980	11,475	#25	Mary now mid-pack; Jennifer dominates the era.
2000	6,221	#46	Mary out of top 50.
2025	2,230	#125	Mary outside top 100.

"What replaced Mary wasn't a single dominant successor. What replaced Mary was variety. The dataset shows no name has ever returned to Mary's level of dominance — by the 1990s, the #1 girls' name's share had dropped below 1.5%. Modern American girls are named from a fundamentally larger and flatter pool than girls a century ago."

The Long Arc — #1 Names by Year, 1880–2025

Girls

Olivia 82,208

Emma 72,819

Charlotte 64,583

"Each decade has a unique combination of names that almost never overlaps with another decade. The 1930s have Betty and Barbara; the 1970s have Jennifer and Amy; the 2010s have Emma and Olivia. If you tell me a person's first name, I can usually estimate their decade of birth within a 15-year window — that's how strongly each decade's fingerprint stamps a generation."

The Risers — Names that Climbed into the 2024 Top 10

Names that ranked outside the 2010 top 10 but reached the top 10 by 2024 — the steepest sustained climbs in the modern record.

Name	Gender	2010 rank	2024 rank	Climb
Theodore	Boys	#259	#4	+255 ranks
Mateo	Boys	#222	#8	+214 ranks
Eliana	Girls	#168	#10	+158 ranks
Oliver	Boys	#88	#3	+85 ranks
Henry	Boys	#67	#5	+62 ranks
Charlotte	Girls	#46	#2	+44 ranks
Amelia	Girls	#41	#4	+37 ranks
Evelyn	Girls	#39	#8	+31 ranks
Liam	Boys	#30	#1	+29 ranks
Lucas	Boys	#35	#10	+25 ranks

"Theodore's 255-rank climb between 2010 and 2024 is the most striking sustained ascent of any traditional boys' name in the modern record. Mateo's 215-rank climb tracks the rising visibility of Latinate names in mainstream American naming. Charlotte's 42-rank climb to #4 girls', triggered by the 2015 royal birth, demonstrates how a single high-visibility cultural event can shift names by half a hundred ranks within a decade."

The Great Fragmentation — Top-10 Share Over Time

In 1950, the top-10 boys' names alone covered 33.8% of US boy births. In 2025, just 8.0%. The American name pool has fundamentally widened.

Year	Top-10 boys' share of US boy births	Top-10 girls' share of US girl births
1900	27.5%	19.5%
1925	30.0%	22.0%
1950	33.8%	24.1%
1975	20.6%	13.7%
2000	11.4%	9.6%
2025	8.0%	7.1%

The table above shows the "dominance share" of the top-10 most-popular names across each decade landmark. In 1950, more than a third of American baby boys were named one of the top-10 names — a figure that has fallen steadily every decade since. The 2025 figure of 8.0% is the lowest in the dataset's 145-year history. The same pattern is even more pronounced for girls: 24.1% in 1950 → 7.1% in 2025. Historical share percentages are sourced from the full US SSA Beyond the Top 1000 Names dataset (public domain).

"What changed isn't that parents stopped picking popular names. It's that the pool of 'popular' names exploded. In 1900, a handful of names were genuinely dominant. In 2025, popularity is distributed across thousands of names, each held by a relatively small population. This is the structural shift that defines modern American naming — not which names are popular, but how thinly that popularity is spread."

Gender-Neutral Naming — The Rise of the Shared Name Pool

The number of names given to both boys and girls in a single year has grown sevenfold since 1900.

In the 1900s decade, roughly 653 names were given to both boys and girls in any year (above SSA's 5-occurrence privacy threshold). By the 2010s decade, that number had peaked at 5,146 — a 7.9× increase. The 2020s data (still in progress) shows a slight reversion to 4,355, but this likely reflects the truncated time window rather than a true decline.

The flow is asymmetric: most newly gender-neutral names move from boy-coded toward girl-coded, not the reverse. Avery, Riley, Cameron, and Logan all began as predominantly male names; in the 2020-2024 window, Avery is now 79.5% female, Riley 76.5% female, Cameron 11.2% female (still boy-dominant but shifting), and Logan 10.5% female. Names rarely move the other direction — almost no traditionally female names have shifted to boy-dominant in the SSA record.

"Why one-directional? Sociolinguists have observed this pattern for decades — once a name is widely used for girls, parents of boys avoid it (the same name on a boy reads as 'feminine'). The reverse is less stigmatized, so traditionally male names get adopted for girls more readily. The SSA dataset doesn't explain causation, but it confirms the directional asymmetry across more than a century."

Names That Died — From Top 5 to Forgotten

Names that ranked in the top 5 of their decade but are now ranked outside the top 500 in 2025.

Barbara (girls) — #3 in the 1930s, now #968 in 2025
Linda (girls) — #2 in the 1940s, now #902 in 2025
Barbara (girls) — #3 in the 1940s, now #968 in 2025
Linda (girls) — #2 in the 1950s, now #902 in 2025
Deborah (girls) — #5 in the 1950s, now #864 in 2025
Lisa (girls) — #1 in the 1960s, now #991 in 2025
Jennifer (girls) — #1 in the 1970s, now #586 in 2025

The girls' list is dominated by mid-20th-century names — Betty, Barbara, Linda, Patricia, Carol, Susan, Karen, Lisa, Jennifer — names that were once nearly universal among American girls of the World War II and Baby Boom generations. They are now in functional disuse.

The boys' list is much shorter — boys' naming is more conservative across generations, and a smaller proportion of boys' names "die" between decades. Even Robert (boys' #1 in 1924–1953) still ranks in the modern top 100. Boys' names trend toward continuity; girls' names trend toward generational replacement.

Methodology & Data Sources

All findings in this report can be reproduced from the named source below.

Source	Coverage	Sample size	License
US Social Security Administration Beyond the Top 1000 Names	US births by name × gender × year, 1880–2025	65,411 rows · 2,510 distinct names	Public domain (CC0)
9BabyNames internal name dictionary	Curated meanings, origins, pronunciations	19,862 entries	Editorial, free to reference
9BabyNames famous-people database	Biographical entries cross-referenced to names	2,999 entries	Editorial, free to reference

Important limitations to know: SSA data covers US births only and suppresses name-year-gender combinations with fewer than 5 occurrences (privacy). Pre-1936 data is incomplete because the Social Security Number system was created in 1936 — earlier records exist only for individuals who later applied for SSNs. Spelling variants (Sara vs Sarah) are counted separately. See the full methodology page for complete details.

Press Kit — Quote-Ready Statements

For media use. All facts cite SSA data above. Free to reference with attribution to 9babynames.com.

Click Copy on any statement to copy the full quote (with source attribution) to your clipboard.

Mary held the #1 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 State of Baby Naming 2026 (compiled from US SSA public-domain data).

Linda peaked in 1947 at 99,693 US births — the highest single-year count for any girls' name in 145 years of SSA records. Source: 9BabyNames State of Baby Naming 2026.

Liam climbed from US #30 in 2010 to #1 in 2017, holding #1 every year since (2017–2024) — one of the fastest sustained ascents in the modern boys' record. Source: 9BabyNames State of Baby Naming 2026.

In 1900, the top-10 girls' names accounted for 19.5% of all US girl births. In 2024, they account for just 7.1%. American baby naming has fragmented across a vastly wider pool of names — modern parents pick from thousands of options, where their grandparents picked from dozens. Source: 9BabyNames State of Baby Naming 2026.

Theodore climbed from US boys' rank #259 in 2010 to #4 in 2024 — a 255-place gain over 14 years and the largest sustained climb of any historically traditional boys' name in the modern record. Source: 9BabyNames State of Baby Naming 2026.

For additional facts, the founder bio, citation formats, and downloadable assets, visit the full press kit page.

Citation Formats

Choose the citation style that matches your publication. Click Copy on any format to copy it to your clipboard.

APA (7th edition)

Tang, M. (2026). The State of Baby Naming 2026: A 145-year retrospective. 9BabyNames. https://9babynames.com/reports/2026-baby-name-trends

MLA (9th edition)

Tang, Marvin. "The State of Baby Naming 2026: A 145-Year Retrospective." 9BabyNames, 2026, https://9babynames.com/reports/2026-baby-name-trends.

Chicago (Notes-Bibliography)

Tang, Marvin. "The State of Baby Naming 2026: A 145-Year Retrospective." 9BabyNames, 2026. https://9babynames.com/reports/2026-baby-name-trends.

Harvard

Tang, M. (2026) The State of Baby Naming 2026: A 145-year retrospective. 9BabyNames. Available at: https://9babynames.com/reports/2026-baby-name-trends

Short attribution (blogs, social media, news)

Source: 9BabyNames State of Baby Naming 2026 — https://9babynames.com/reports/2026-baby-name-trends (compiled from US SSA public-domain data).

Use rights: Free to reference for editorial, educational, and research purposes with credit to 9babynames.com. SSA-derived figures should additionally credit the US Social Security Administration as the underlying data source. For commercial bulk-licensing or custom data extracts, please contact us via the contact page.

Related Resources

Reports & Research hub — back to the full collection
Data methodology page — full SSA source documentation and limitations
Press kit page — fact sheet, founder bio, additional quote-ready statements
Full A–Z baby-name dictionary — 19,862 entries
Curated name collections by theme, era, cultural tradition