Jacob Retains Title while Emma Gets Defeated

According to the Social Security Administration’s list of top baby names for 2009, Jacob topped the list of boys’ names for the 11th year in a row. New to the top 10 this year for boys are Jayden and Noah, and for girls, Mia.  

The top 10 for boys, girls are:

• Jacob, Isabella
• Ethan, Emma
• Michael, Olivia
• Alexander, Sophia
• William, Ava
• Joshua, Emily
• Daniel, Madison
• Jayden, Abigail
• Noah, Chloe
• Anthony, Mia

The SSA said this year’s winner for the biggest jump is Maliyah, which it says is related to the popularity of the First Family.  Malia (the spelling used by the First Daughter), also is one of the top 10 fastest risers among girls names.  Isla was the second fastest riser among girls.  On the boy’s side, Cullen had the biggest increase, and King came in as the number three top mover for boys.  

The girl’s name Marely, which had the third largest increase last year, had the biggest drop this year from number 334 to 851. Mylee had the second biggest drop; Miley (as in Cyrus) also dropped in popularity.  Lindsay dropped from number 381 to 524.  Brett, Jonas and Alvin are among the boy’s names with the largest decreases.   

With 69 baby Baracks born in 2009, Barack continues to move up the list to number 1,993 from 2,424 in 2008, and 12,535 in 2007, but still lags well behind First Dog Bo at 782.    

Religious names continue to be very popular, including the girl names Heaven at number 275 and Nevaeh (Heaven spelled backwards) at 34.  Messiah was number 663 for boys.    

The Administration noted 3.7% of the Top 1000 boy names rhymed with the word “maiden” and names associated with cities, states, or countries were popular, particularly for girls.  

Social Security’s baby names Web site is at http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/babynames/, and the Administration announced that on May 14 the site will have an exclusive video of Chubby Checker counting down the most popular names of the past decade.