Top Baby Names of 2007
Categories: Babies, In The News, Playground Bureau
If you looked at the name tags of an average size preschool class, you'd likely find a representative of nearly every one of 2007's most popular baby names, according to the latest list released by the Social Security Administration.
Without looking ahead, can you guess what they are?
The 2007 "Why Are There Seven Girls in My Grade with the Same First Name as Me? " List includes:
- Emily
- Isabella
- Emma
- Ava
- Madison
- Sophia
- Olivia
- Abigail
- Hannah
- Elizabeth
The 2007 "We'll Just Call You By Your Last Name, Dude" List is:
- Jacob
- Michael
- Ethan
- Joshua
- Daniel
- Christopher
- Anthony
- William
- Matthew
- Andrew
A friend was just telling me the other day that someone was all excited about their new baby and the wonderful, unique name they had come up with for him, Ethan. She said she didn't have the heart to tell the sleep-deprived mom that she now knew 11 Ethan's, nearly all under the age of 3.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
T 5-12-2008 @ 12:37PM
you know, I named my daughter Isabella in 1999...when the statistics at that time ranked the name near 100 in popularity.
*sigh*
at least I can say that she's older than the vast majority of them, right?
(also, I'm totally relieved that my son's name is hovering in almost-obscurity...*knock wood*)
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Anji 5-12-2008 @ 12:51PM
Well my boy's the only Orion Taliesin I know. ;o)
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ame s 5-12-2008 @ 1:12PM
Great name! People are SO gonna steal that name, girl ;)
Nicola 5-12-2008 @ 1:25PM
We have friends with an Orion, aged 3. His older brother is Osiris. Great names.
Anji 5-12-2008 @ 2:08PM
I LOVE Osiris as a name, it was one I considered. I love that it goes so well with Orion as well!
ame s 5-12-2008 @ 1:13PM
I tried to choose names that weren't obscure but that I didn't hear very often. I loved Michaela and Emma, but they started popping up all over the place.
I would have liked to have named my 2nd daughter Zoey, but we had a cat by that name once upon a time and I just knew my first daughter would find out and tell her sister she was named after a deceased cat.
Right until post-delivery, I was going to use the name Catherine for my older daughter but upon meeting her realized she was a "Samantha".
With daughter #2, my husband wanted to name her Sydney. I agreed but found out a family we attend church with had daughters named Samantha & Sydney and I didn't want to be a "name stealer."
Second daughter was also going to be Catherine but I decided she was a Skylar. I used a different spelling of Catherine as a middle name. In the months after her birth, there were many birth announcments in the newspaper of other "Skylar's". Many people "stole" my name after I was born, also. Darn name stealers, lol!
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Nicola 5-12-2008 @ 1:28PM
Love the: "Why Are There Seven Girls in My Grade with the Same First Name as Me? " and "We'll Just Call You By Your Last Name, Dude".
Hey, at least Aiden finally jumped ship. Along with all of its phonetic siblings -- Caden, Braden, Jaden, etc. That was getting on my nerves.
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Keith 5-12-2008 @ 2:41PM
Aiden is still top of the charts--it's just fallen because of the Aiden/Aidan spellings. Combine those, and it's over 21,000, and a ranking in the top 5.
As for the "-aden" names, they're all still popular, but are lower on the list because of spelling variation. In 2006, there were 8 different spellings of Jayden in the top 1000, for example.
Guy Davis 5-12-2008 @ 1:46PM
You might find this map of popular baby names (http://www.babynamemap.com) is an easier way of viewing the latest SSA data including 2007.
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commonplaceiris 5-12-2008 @ 2:28PM
I enjoy looking at sites like this baby map one but now I'm wondering how accurate it is. I know I picked a not much used these days name for my daughter but I did expect it to show up once in the year of her birth in our state!!
I like names that don't stand out as odd, but that you aren't going to need to share with lots of other people in your class at school. Perhaps because it's the kind of name I have and I was always glad I wasn't one of the many Rebeccas and Donnas in my year. My husband doesn't share my concern though and his name is one that's consistently been in the top 10 boys names. I guess the thing is really to pick a name you love that you think will fit -- I'm glad we waited until meeting our daughter to pick a name from our shortlist.
Guy Davis 5-14-2008 @ 1:36PM
@commonplaceiris: The SSA only releases the top 100 baby names by state so if your child's name was not in the top 100, then you won't find it on the Baby Name Map in your state for that year.
Where I live, Alberta Canada, statistics are available for every name given, even if only given to a single child. For example, only one girl was named Elsie (http://www.babynamemap.com/girls/Elsie) in Alberta last year.
I hope this help answer your concern about the accuracy of the Baby Name Map. Let me know if you have further questions.
Judy 5-12-2008 @ 1:51PM
My daughter, born in 1995, is a Samantha. At the time, I thought it was a somewhat uncommon name, but I later learned it was in the top 5 for that year.
Our boys both have names that haven't cracked the top 100. The older one, Guthrie, has never even been in the top 1,000, according to the Baby Name Wizard. Turner has gained in popularity, but I've still never personally met another one.
I always remember how many Brians and Jennifers there were my age, and how they were all known by their first name last initial, and don't want that to happen to my kids (there were actually, if I remember right, 3 Brian B.'s in my grade, so they had to get even more creative than that).
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Uly 5-12-2008 @ 8:07PM
My sister is a Jennifer - and she picked two of THE MOST popular names as nicknames for her girls.
The other Jennifer on our block gave her older daughter a very unusual name... and then proceeded to name the second child Jennifer! Well, it's pretty unusual nowadays, anyway.
the goddess anna 5-12-2008 @ 2:01PM
When I named my daughter Sophia, I could only name one other person with that name (Sophia Loren). This was in 2003. It bugs the crud out of me to know that I picked a popular name - and I'm kicking myself in the butt for not going ahead and giving her the Slavic spelling of it (to match my Polish maiden name that she retains).
The boys were named after family, and that's that.
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Emma Leigh 5-12-2008 @ 3:08PM
My middle name is Emily and up until the last few years the only other Emily's I knew were in my family - the Aunt I was named for and her great-granddaughter. I had always thought my name was unique and old-fashioned - could never find it on the pre-printed kiosks for pencils, keychains, ornaments, etc. Now the name is everywhere! It is very odd how trends change.
I do recall when I was playing high school softball my mother was the scorekeeper for the league. That particular year the tee-ball age team had a team of 9 players and 6 of them were named Stephanie (or a variation of the spelling.) Ashley was also very popular.
It is also amuzing that my daughter's dance class has 8 girls and your to 10 list there names over half the class!
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hillgal19 5-12-2008 @ 3:31PM
Re: Aidan, there is actually a great post on that subject at http://www.babynamewizard.com/archives/2008/5/reprise-the-age-of-aidans
Also, for mapping by name trends, she has a map of the previous year's data as sorted by style:
http://www.babynamewizard.com/map.html
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ivory 5-12-2008 @ 3:28PM
Our older daughter is an "Elinor" (which for what it's worth is the British spelling, not a cre8tive spelling) and goes by "Ella", which has been creeping up the last few years. As an Ivory, I wanted to give my girls more stable names, but hoped to stay out of the Top 10. Now if Alice suddenly jumps up 30 points, I will wonder what is going on.
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Ash 5-12-2008 @ 5:09PM
My name is Ashlea. I live in a small country, and i have never ever met anyone with the same spelling as me. Lots of people say how pretty it is. I like the fact that it is a common name - just spelt differently. I dont have any kids but i have always always loved the name Ava for a girl. Because it was pretty and uncommon. Now its in the top 5. :(
Names change so much!
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Kristen 5-12-2008 @ 8:38PM
You didn't just go there with E.
Why you gotta be picking on the Ethans of the world? I didn't have to yell at my son once today in Chick-Fil-A. I had 4 other mothers to do it.
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Jenni 5-12-2008 @ 11:56PM
Okay, I am an Jennifer and everywhere I go there is at least, if not more, one other Jennifer (there were three in my k-8 class). My mom picked it because no one was named Jennifer; she should have checked. It was the most popular name that year.
What I find odd, however, if that I always have someone with my name around me; but I never hear about three other Emily's in a class or anything other name. (Maybe Michael, we had three of them in our class as well in a classroom of only 35 students).
As a preschool teacher, the closest I ever got to many mupltiple names was Taylor (and every spelling of it). I had 6 within one year, three girls and three boys; but no more than 3 at one given time.
I just think it's odd that I have had to constantly share my name and have yet come across others in the same situation with other number one names of the year.
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