Popular US Baby Names — BabyCenter versus Social Security Administration

I was listening to the latest episode of Slate’s “Mom and Dad Are Fighting” parenting podcast and one of the topics was baby names.  The guests was BabyCenter executive editor Janet Ozzard, who talked about the most popular baby names of 2014.  BabyCenter collects its information on baby names from those that have given their baby’s name to the site, which for 2014 included somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 names.   I thought it might be fun to see how similar this is to the Social Security Administration (SSA) list of baby names, which is essentially the entire population of babies in the US, rather than a self-selected group.

Now the Social Security Administration public list contains the names of about 3.6 million babies born in the United States in 2013.   This information comes from Social Security card applications and includes all babies born in the United States if the name has at least 2 letters, and information on state of birth, sex, and year are included.  They do exclude from the public list names that are given to 4 or fewer babies, for privacy reasons.

On the other hand, the BabyCenter list only contains the names of those that have been given to them by participating parents (usually the mother).   While 400,000 or 500,000 is a lot of people, these are clearly not representative of the US population.   First, it’s likely that those that have registered on BabyCenter are different in some significant ways from the overall US population, if for no other reason than they are on the Internet.   According to the Pew Research Internet Project, those not on the Internet are more likely to speak Spanish, have lower incomes, and have less than a high school education.  And, of course, not all BabyCenter visitors are from the US, perhaps only about 50%.

Listed below are the top 20 names for 2013 for boys and girls for both BabyCenter and the Social Security Administration.  I used 2013 data, as that’s the most recent year for which data is available for both the SSA and BabyCenter.  There are some interesting differences.   For girls, the first six are almost exactly the same (Mia and Ava switch places).  Then we get into some big differences.   Zoe is #8 on the BabyCenter list, but only #31 on the SSA list.  However, this is because BabyCenter combines similar names while SSA treats each unique spelling as a different name.  And if you add the number of girls named “Zoey” (#24) and “Zoe” (#31) on the SSA list, they would end up being #7.  However, Lily is #7 on BabyCenter, but only #27 for the SSA.  Similarly Madelyn is #13 on BabyCenter but #68 on the SSA list (although if you combine this with Madeline (#90) it would be #23.  Conversely, Elizabeth is #10 on the SSA list, but all the way down to #46 for BabyCenter.

For boys, initially the differences look greater, but again part of this occurs because BabyCenter combines similar names.  Jackson is #1 on the BabyCenter list, but only #16 on the SSA list.  However, if this is added to the number of boys named Jaxson (#46 on the SSA list), it would be number one too.  Still, the #2 name on BabyCenter list is Aiden, which isn’t even in the top 10 on the SSA list (#12).   And, in the other direction, William is #5 on the SSA list but only #20 for BabyCenter.

So, if you’re a BabyCenter user, and want to know what others like you are naming their kids, look at the BabyCenter list.  If you want to see what people in the US are naming their children, go to the SSA list.   And if you want a cool visualization of historical changes, go to the BabyNameWizard.com NameVoyager.

 Girls Boys
Social SecurityBabyCenterSocial SecurityBabyCenter
1.SophiaSophiaNoahJackson
2.EmmaEmmaLiamAiden
3.OliviaOliviaJacobLiam
4.IsabellaIsabellaMasonLucas
5.AvaMiaWilliamNoah
6.MiaAvaEthanMason
7.EmilyLilyMichaelJayden
8.AbigailZoeAlexanderEthan
9.MadisonEmilyJaydenJacob
10.ElizabethChloeDanielJack
11.CharlotteLaylaElijahCaden
12.AveryMadisonAidenLogan
13.SofiaMadelynJamesBenjamin
14.ChloeAbigailBenjaminMichael
15.EllaAubreyMatthewCaleb
16.HarperCharlotteJacksonRyan
17.AmeliaAmeliaLoganAlexander
18.AubreyEllaDavidElijah
19.AddisonKayleeAnthonyJames
20.EvelynAveryJosephWilliam

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