Freshly Picked Baby Names of 2014: New Names in the top 100s and 200s

When the 2014 names stats were released, I was thrilled...and busy. So when I finally got to sneak in some time to delve into the names, I was determined to write up a quick post on a few finds. The results are fantastic, fresh names that are showing tons of promise. It doesn't get more inspiring than that!

America has spoken—these top names are the latest picks worthy of the top 100 and the top 200. They range in style from pioneer-era favorites (Alice) to modern inventions (Ryder), but there's such a rich sample here that one or two is bound to entice you. To put it simply: these are red-hot names to watch in the next coming years.

Baby Names New to the Top 100

New Top 100 Girls' Names

• Eleanor
• Alice
• Vivian
• Hadley

New Top 100 Boys' Names

• Asher
• Ryder
• Leo

This group of names does have a few things in common. Eleanor, Vivian, and Leo are choices popular in the 1910s and 20s, demonstrating that our taste for "old fashioned" is starting to move beyond pioneer times. Alice, however, is a perfect example of the hold that those Victorian-era names continue to have over us. Hadley and Ryder could be a perfect little sibling set, as they are both modern choices new to the naming scene. Asher is a newly discovered biblical favorite, with little use in America before the 21st century.

Baby Names New to the Top 200

New Top 200 Girls' Names

• Emilia
• Arabella
• Everly
• Callie
• Alina
• Rose
• Athena
• Emerson
• Adelyn

New Top 200 Boys' Names

• Luca
• Karter
• Graham
• Jayceon

This group is really going places! They are all on a sharp upward trend, as parents look for names that aren't overdone, but aren't unfamiliar.

You can put a check in the old-fashioned column next to Callie, Rose, and Graham, but for the most part, these names reflect a more modern style. Some are a twist on wildly popular old-fashioned favorites with Emilia (Amelia), Adelyn (Madeline), and Karter (Carter). Truly modern choices are Everly, Emerson, and Jayceon. Luca is an Italian classic, while the girls have a flowing trio of multisyllabic "a" names with Arabella, Alina, and Athena.

The Names of 2014: Names America Loved and Left

I'm as thrilled as that little girl (and that's saying something!), because the moment has come for name enthusiasts and curious people everywhere—the 2014 stats have been released by the Social Security Administration. Here's a quick summary of the names the US has loved and, well, left over the past year.

2014's Most Popular Names

The top 10 for boys and girls is a list I love. Seriously! The new top 10 is looking very tasteful and charming.

While there isn't usually much change in the top 10, I have to brag just a bit as I predicted Charlotte would continue its upward climb and reach top-10 status. Here's what life at the top looks like for boys and girls.

Boys Noah Liam Mason Jacob William Ethan Michael Alexander James Daniel

Girls Emma Olivia Sophia Isabella Ava Mia Emily Abigail Madison Charlotte

All in all, there's a lot to love in these top 20 names, which are loaded with classics and vintage charmers. The boys' traditional name James (appropriately) usurped Jayden, while Charlotte replaced Elizabeth.

For more details on names that are on the rise, try my post Freshly Picked Baby Names of 2014. But for some, the more intriguing stories are the names that made strides in the span of one year.

2014's Fastest Rising Names

These are names that gained more popularity over last year. But keep in mind that none of these names are even close to the top 100 and no one is deeming these "popular"...just more popular than they used to be. They are names we may have already been drawn to, but for a lot of them, a celebrity or reality star is what put these names over the edge.

Boys Bode Axl Gannon Bodie Royal Coen Anakin Killian Reyansh Ronin

Girls Aranza Montserrat Monserrat Maisie Zendaya Karter Ariadne Daleyza Thea Remington

For boys, the number one spot is awarded to Bode Miller, who took home a bronze in the super-G event during the Sochi 2014 Olympics. Celebrity baby Axl, son of Josh and Fergie Duhamel, gets partial credit for the upswing for his rock-n-roll inspired name. Another inspiring source was the show The Middle, featuring a character named Axl. We can thank the TV show Once Upon a Time for single-handedly inspiring the momentum behind Killian (an anglicized spelling of the Irish name Cillian), where it's Captain Hook's first name. Anakin is soaring higher as Star Wars excitement brews and many are connecting with the on-trend sound of the name. Actor and dancer Kunwar Amar starred in India's teen dance drama as a character named Reyansh, while the movie 47 Ronin sparked interest in the samurai group with a super cool name.

For girls, the names Aranza and Montserrat/Monserrat were inspired by characters on telenovelas, while Ariadne is the star actress on the telenovela hit La Malquerida. The no-surname-required teen actress and dancer Zendaya piqued interest in her name as she starred in a Disney original movie. English teen actress Maisie Williams has brought her sweet name across the pond, and Thea gained some attention via a character on Arrow.

Overall, I'm most excited about: Maisie and Thea.

2014's Fastest Falling Names

The names that aren't doing so hot are often a great reflection of what and who has received negative press over the past year. They have to be a bit distinct, perhaps with a unique spelling, making it extra tough to get on board with these names in the face of a bad celebrity reputation.

Boys Bently Damion Amare Isiah Xavi Sidney Deegan Jair Juelz Corban

Girls Miley Karly Britney Kaya Nahla Rihanna Kaylyn Makena Karissa Sherlyn

For the boys, alternative spellings rule the fast fallers. I'm looking at you, Bently (Bentley), Damion (Damian), and Corban (Corbin). Other fallers include a few fizzled celebrities. Amare (spelled Amar'e) is the name of a famed NY Knicks center whose injuries led to the team's return to the bottom. Juelz Santana is a rapper whose success has faded quickly, and Isiah Thomas is a retired basketball player who lost a sexual harassment case and went on to become the president of the WNBA's New York Liberty.

On the girls' side, the demise of Miley is in the obvious wake of Miley Cyrus' fall from grace sanity over the last year and a half. Rihanna and Britney can be added to the less-than-wholesome group of pop singers who aren't inspiring namesakes. Nahla is the unique name of Halle Berry and model Gabriel Aubry's daughter, who is just a child, but is surrounded by the drama of her parents' court battles.

Two Names The Entire Country Was Watching

Elsa ~ Disney's Frozen came out in late 2013, making it hard to tell whether it would influence parents until 2014's stats were released. And the big news is that Frozen's reach has, as many predicted, easily extended to baby names. In 2013 the name Elsa was near the middle of the top 1,000 names, ranked at 528. But last year it jumped to 286 as parents embrace Elsa's irresistible simplicity and magical charms.

Isis ~ While the terror group known as ISIS grabbed horrific headlines in 2014, parents began to drop this girls' name as quickly as possible. In 2013 the name Isis was (ironically) in a similar position to Elsa at a rank of 575, but the SSA now reports it's at 706. I predict that 2015 will reflect the same trend, until this name disappears from the top 1,000 altogether.

What to Read While We Wait, What to Watch When it's Time

Waiting on The Royal Baby

In case you haven't heard, the world is waiting with baited breath for what will be the biggest baby announcement of the year. The Duke and Duchess will be welcoming a brother or sister to little Prince George of Cambridge (whose middle names include Alexander and Louis) any week, any day, any hour, any minute now. Can you feel the global-level excitement?

• If you want to join name speculators, the Baby Name Wizard has you covered.
• If you want to delve into the royal family's appearances step-by-step, People has a Royal Baby Watch timeline.
• We can expect royal officials to announce when Kate is admitted to St. Mary's hospital, and roughly, when the baby is born on the Clarence House and British Monarchy twitter accounts. We will likely be told then whether it's a boy or girl.
• The baby's name, however, and other details will be announced by a declaration placed on an easel outside of Buckingham Palace, and a town crier will read it. For Prince George, we had to wait two days to learn what he was named. I watched this live, and you will be able to as well, though I'm not 100% sure where—my bet is on the ABC News website (among others). 
• For a trip down memory lane, you can check out my post on Prince George's name, featuring a full analysis on its history and delightful British style.

Waiting on the Top Names of 2014

There's even more important name news coming up soon. And I must admit that every year, from January to May, name stats feel stale to me, and this year is no exception. I'm very much looking forward to being able to say "last year" when it comes to sharing how well a name is doing with as much accuracy as possible. I'm really eager to move past the oh-so-dated days of 2013 and bring in fresh numbers for 2014.

It's going to happen soon. The SSA will release new information on the Friday before Mother's Day, as they do every year, but there is no precise release time (at least, not known to the public). I'll keep you posted.

Updates will be on the way, with a name feature on the royal baby's name, and a few notes from the release of 2014 name stats.

America's Most Popular Baby Names of 2008

A little background

Every year the Social Security Administration releases statistics on the most popular names in the United States according to social security card registrations. 

It's an amazing resource and without it, it would be nearly impossible to write with any authority on baby names. Read more about name rank here.

---

FIRST THINGS FIRST: The Top Ten of 2008
Big news this year! We have two new names in the top 10, and Emily fell from the number one spot, which it held for 12 years.

Rank 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Boys Jacob Michael Ethan Joshua Daniel Alexander Anthony William Christopher Matthew

Girls Emma Isabella Emily Madison Ava Olivia Sophia Abigail Elizabeth Chloe

Changes to the top ten

• Emma and Emily switched places
• Andrew fell out of the top 10
• Madison rose while Ava fell, both by one spot only

New top 10 names

• Alexander rose 5 places to #5
• Chloe rose 6 places to #10
• Both Alexander and Chloe have never been in the top 10 before!

---

Standout Names in top 1,000
Biggest Changes in Popularity

Rising names that became dramatically more popular

Female names

1. + 469: Khloe A unique spelling of a name that’s already very popular, inspired by reality t.v. star Khloe Kardashian
2. + 426: Marlee (spellings Marley and Marley also rose dramatically) Look for a feature on this name soon!
3. + 354: Audrina A beautiful name that rose 354 places, most likely due to the reality star Audrina Patridge of MTV’s The Hills
4. + 353: Adalyn This name got its inspiration from Madeline
5. + 221: Jaslene The name of America's Next Top Model winner, 2007

More to note: Olive rose 181 spots to number 813, and Shiloh rose by 137 places to 650.

Male names

1. + 200: Jacoby Pronounced jah-KO-bee more often than JACK-ah-bee
2. + 198: Kane
3. + 184: Beckett
4. + 140: Paxton
5. + 131: Kale
6. + 126: August A truly vintage name

More to note: Maverick rose by 54 spots, thanks to the election!

Falling names that became much less popular

Girls: Angelique, Yoselin, Jaden, Kirsten, Anahi, Alissa
Boys: Aldo, Branden, Osvaldo, Leland, Billy, Noe

---

Names I’ve Featured
Since last year at this time, there are a few I’ve written about that stand out in their rank change.

• Adelaide gained 161 places, to number 551. It's one of my favorites.
• Elsie is now at 740, gaining 146 places. That’s huge!
• Harper gained 142 places and is now at 297.
• Rihanna gained 104 places.
• Raphael gained 70 places.
• Graham gained 60 places to number 323.
• Violet gained 45 spots.
• Sadly, India fell by 128 places. Yikes!

What is Name Rank?

When I refer to rankings, I am talking about the name statistics released by the Social Security Administration (SSA). The United States SSA releases a yearly list of the top 1,000 names for boys and girls based on applications for social security cards. The names are listed so that the most popular name is #1, and the least popular name is #1,000. A lower number = more popular.

The SSA has been tracking names statistics since 1879, though Social Security cards weren't often applied for at that time. True accuracy begins closer to the year 1937.

The following is taken directly from the SSA, with encouragement to post:

1. Names are restricted to cases where the year of birth, sex, State of birth (50 States and District of Columbia) are on record, and where the given name is at least 2 characters long.
2. With one exception, name data are not edited. For example, the sex associated with a name may be incorrect. Entries such as "Unknown" and "Baby" are not removed from the lists. The only exception to our non-edit policy is for names exceeding 10 characters in length. The data file we use is limited to the first 10 characters, so that a popular name such as Christopher lacks the terminal letter r. We fix obvious truncated names where possible.
3. Different spellings of similar names are not combined. For example, the names Caitlin, Caitlyn, Kaitlin, Kaitlyn, Kaitlynn, Katelyn, and Katelynn are considered separate names and each has its own rank.
4. When two different names are tied with the same frequency for a given year of birth, we break the tie by assigning rank in alphabetical order.
5. Some names are applied to both males and females (for example, Micah). Our rankings are done by sex, so that a name such as Micah will have a different rank for males as compared to females. When you seek the popularity of a specific name (see "Popularity of a Name"), you can specify the sex. If you do not specify the sex, we provide rankings for the more popular name-sex combination.
6. My own note: Names are tracked from March–February. For example, information that I refer to as coming from 2008 includes name information from March of 2008–February of 2009. Don't ask me why; that's just how it's done.

I write about rank so much because it's the best way to get a pulse on the popularity of a name. Without these statistics, analyzing names would be guesswork. There aren't many countries that publish government statistics on name popularity. Thanks, SSA!

The Mother of all Days

It's finally here. Mother's Day is first and foremost a day to celebrate the amazing women who raise children and sacrifice so much for the love of their kids. Each year on Mother's Day, the Social Security Administration releases name statistics from the year before. For people who love names and watch trends, this is a big day too.

The Top Ten
Click here for the Social Security Administration's list of top 10 names for 2007!

We waited to know whether Emily would be knocked out of the number one spot, which it has held since 1996, but Emily still reigns supreme for 2007. Some of us waited to see new names in the top ten, but there was only one: Elizabeth was number 10 for girls. It wasn't a surprise at all, since Elizabeth has been in the top 11 names since 1979, wavering in and out of the top ten but never falling below 11. Samantha, which disappeared from the top ten, didn't go far at all and only fell to number 12. Still, it was a low point for Samantha, since it hasn't been so far down on the rankings since 1986!

Boys names stayed practically the same as 2006, with the top ten names just trading places in the list. Jacob is still number one, as it has been for 8 years. Matthew is a slight surprise, since it actually fell four spots in popularity from number 5 in 2006, to number 9. The last time Matthew fell in popularity was 1959, when it fell only three spots.

Typically the top ten names are not a shock to anyone. After all, they are America's favorite names and the most common choices for the year. The list this year is just what we expected, and it is filled with lovely names, some of which I have already chosen to feature in my blogs.

Names I've Blogged About

Since I started blogging about names last December, I've mentioned a few times whether I expected a particular name to rise or fall in popularity. Here's how I did with those:

• Myla did rise, as I'd hoped and predicted, a total of 47 spots, from 912 to 865 for 2007.
• Roman rose just two spots, but it's in line with the name's growing popularity.
• Giselle rose 34 places, which I credit entirely to the new Disney princess.
• Avery, which I expected to "climb considerably for 2007," rose just 4 places.
• Charlotte is a name that I'd thought was "poised for a comeback," and it rose 21 places for 2007.
• Callie rose 47 places for 2007. That's a pretty big rise in popularity.
• Yasmine or Yasmin fell by 34 spots.
• Lucas rose six places, which is not as much as I thought it would, but it is still climbing in popularity nonetheless.
• Lyric, which I mentioned in my last post, rose in popularity by 94 spots.

Standout Names in the Top 1,000
It would take a lot of time to compare a list of 1,000 names with years' past to do this perfectly. I would love to do that, but it's just not feasible for me. So here is my imperfect list of a few names I noticed made great strides or newly appeared in the top 1,000:

• The newly created name Miley is already number 278, thanks to the Disney pop star. An alternate spelling, Mylie, came in at 861. It's also interesting to note that the male name Milo made a leap of 127 spots to number 548.
• Kingston, the name of Gwen Stefani's son, made a gargantuan leap of 587 places to number 355, proving the power of celebrities to start new name trends.
• Shiloh, the name of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's daughter, newly appeared in the rankings at number 804.
• The male name Grady shot up 133 places. That's a huge rise, especially for a name not directly associated with a superstar.
• The name Adelaide, one of my new favorites last year, shot up 188 spots. This name is definitely on the rise.
• The girl's name Willow rose in popularity by 94 spots. It's a nature name, the name of several characters on TV and movies, and of course, the name of Will Smith's daughter.
• The name Kanye, brought to our attention by the rap star, fell 403 spots! That could be due to the controversy that surrounds Kanye West and the public outbursts that he made in 2006.