Introduction

The within this document, you will be shown what names names have had the most rise in popularity, what names has fallen the most, and both these sections will be separated by male and females names. There will also be some other visuals included within the the document to help paint a clearer picture of which names are bound to be at the top.

This data comes from the Social Security Administration. The years that are included within the data are from 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, and 2023, with five year intervals to emphasis any jumps that may have occurs throughout those years.

The purpose of the document is to further explore the trend of name popularity and where it might be heading in the future. The trends will not always paint a clear picture, but they will help show what we can typically expect if names continue with the current standard.

Female Names

We’ll first start with the female names. Similarly to male names, we will be going over five major topics within name changes throughout the year. Firstly, there will be a section for relevance, meaning the names that take the highest percentile comparatively to all the other (100 of 200 is 50% relevance). Then, we’ll look at the names with the largest positive name count change, regardless if the name was already popular or not (100 => 200 would be a +100 change). After, we will cover the largest average positive percent change in names, relative to what the count of names were in previous years (100 => 200 is a 100% change). Finally, we will do the inverse for the count and percent, with a negative count (200 => 100 is a -100 count change) and a negative percentage (200 => 100 is a -100% change).

Most Relevant Female Names

What you will see within this graph is the top ten names within the time span of 2003 to 2023 that where on average the most relevant. As you can see, most names don’t even come close to reaching more than a percent of the total number of female baby names, despite being the most popular on average.

The highest relevance average goes to the name “Emma” at 1.08%, meaning from 2003 to 2023, a little over one percent of babies given female names were “Emma”.

Highest Positive Female Name Count Changes

This graph shows what female names found the highest increase in count, meaning which names saw the greatest pure number increase. As you can tell, some names went from low counts, up to high counts, and then back down to low counts. While the count has returned to what it used to be, this graph is simply showing which names had the highest jumps in count. A thing to note is that the only names that share graphs between the two are Ava and Sophia.

“Sophia” ranks number four on the percent relevance graph, but number one within the count change, at a positive difference of 11,563 from a count of 9686 in 2003, to a 21,249 count in 2013.

Highest Positive Female Name Percent Changes

This data shows the percent increase from each 5 year interval, meaning going from 100 to 200 is a 100% positive name change increase. While not as important data as the last two listed, I also wanted to show what names have change the most positively on average. Unfortunately, the data mostly consists of names that have when from numbers as low as five, to five hundred, showing a large jump in percentile growth, but then quickly coming back down to nothing for the other years displayed. Something that might be confusing with the graph that I’d like to clear up is that the data starts at 2008, with lots of the points being high. This is because with the starting year of 2003, no data can be compared till 2008, hence the high initial start.

The highest positive female name percent average change was “Allisson” which went from count of 5 (the lowest count a name can be) to 768, which gives a 15260% change. The average percent change was 3771.64%, despite the name going back down to only 41 babies named “Allisson” in 2023.

Highest Negative Female Name Count Changes

Now on to the highest negative counts changes for female names. This looks at names which have lost the most female baby names from one year to another, meaning 1000 to 100 is a 900 count negative change. This graph is interesting in that “Madison”, “Emily”, and “Abigail”, while on a clear downward path in count, are holding spots within the top 10 most relevant names.

The highest name count change comes from “Emily” which had a count of 25,692 in 2003, but only a count of 6154 in 2023, making a name count change of -19,538.

Highest Negative Female Name Percent Changes

While this graph is also minimally important, it does show the interesting phenomena of names that went from some count to nothing, seemingly to never return. One name that seem to be lost entirely is “Infant”, in which no more than 4 female named children have been born with this name from 2013 to 2023. The name “Jadon” was almost the same as “Infant”, but had 5 babies named “Jadon” in the year 2018. Also within the list, the 8 other names listed have gone to 0 as of 2023, which means the possibility these names might also be lost in the near future.

The highest negative percent changed name is “Trista”, going from 566 children with this name in 2003, to 0 in 2023. The average percent change is -77.21%.

Male Names

On to male names, we will be going over all the same major topics covered within the female names. The only contrast between them will be that the data set is focused on male names instead of female names, and so observations made might differ from what we saw with the female name section.

Most Relevant Male Names

Comparative to the female chart where the trends of names where relatively chaotic, the male names seem to have a trend path of either being popular and falling in popularity later, or being not as popular within 2003, but greatly jumping in 2023. In particular, the name “Liam” and “Noah” have seen considerable growth.

The most popular male name on average is “Jacob”, averaging a 0.93 percent relevance. This is in stark contrast to the female name being 1.08 percent on average, meaning the spread of male names comparatively to female might (emphasis on might) be more evenly spread compared to female names.

Highest Positive Male Name Count Changes

Highest Positive Male Name Percent Changes

Highest Negative Male Name Count Changes

Highest Negative Male Name Percent Changes