Popular Baby Names For This Decade And The Next

Anyone can tell you what names were popular in the past ten years. But how about the next ten years?

Earlier this year, name expert Laura Wattenberg of BabyNameWizard.com made her predictions for the top baby names of 2019, and just recently Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz of Nameberry.com made their own list.

We compared the most popular names of the 2000s from the Social Security Administration's website with the future-gazing of Nameberry and ParentDish's own Name Lady. Then we checked with Wattenberg for some further insight.

Here's what we found out:

Number One Name For Girls, past decade: Emily

Emily takes the top spot for girls this decade, despite the fact that it is a relatively normal name and isn't shared with one of the three main characters from the "Twilight" series. This graph from BabyNameWizard.com shows that Emily peaked in 2003, when it was number one, and has been falling ever since.



Number One Name For Girls, future decade: Ava (Nameberry), Lila (Baby Name Wizard)

Nameberry's Satran and Rosenkrantz aren't exactly going out on a limb with their choice for the number one girl name of the future. They say that "Ava has come from nowhere in the past 20 years," and a graph from BabyNameWizard.com shows that they are correct.



For the decade that has just past, Ava was at number 19. BabyNameWizard.com says that Ava is "Of uncertain origin and meaning," and "is thought to be a short form of the Germanic Aveza or Avia, which are also of uncertain meaning." Oh, how mysterious!

The Name Lady's choice for top girl name of the next decade was a bit more daring -- Lila. To come up with her prediction, Wattenberg told ParentDish in a phone interview that she sees a trend toward names with "strong 'I' sounds," and Lila certainly fits. This graph shows that there may be more to the choice than just the sound, however. Notice how Lila was quite popular many years ago, peaking at 196 in the 1920's. Then, it dropped off significantly, and has recently been rising faster than most of our stock portfolios.



Number One Name For Boys, past decade: Jacob

Here's your "Twilight" name! Perhaps influenced by Twi-hards across this great land, Jacob was the most popular name for boys in the 2000's, according to the SSA. (For those keeping score at home, Edward was down at 130. Oh, the horror.) The name has been number one since 2003, as shown on this graph from BabyNameWizard.com.



So does the popularity of the name Jacob have anything to do with the shirtless shape-shifter played onscreen by Taylor Lautner? The first "Twilight" book was published in 2005, and author Stephenie Meyer says that the idea for the series "came to her in a dream" in 2003. Coincidence? Or something... more...? Just a coincidence, says Laura Wattenberg. "Jacob was number one before 'Twilight' hit," Wattenberg told us. Twi-hards shouldn't despair, though. She says we'll see a surge of "Twilight"-inspired names in the coming years, partly because of the popularity of the books and films and also "the way the author chose names. The names of the vampire family in particular -- Esme, Emmett, Jasper -- were all chosen [by author Stephenie Meyer] as cutting-edge, cusp of fashion names to make [them] seem cooler," Wattenberg told us.

Number One Name For Boys, future decade: Ethan (Nameberry), Miles (Baby Name Wizard)

Again, not a particularly bold choice from Nameberry. Ethan has indeed been rising in popularity the past few years; it was way down at 55 in the 1990's, rising to 8th in the 2000's.



The Name Lady was more daring with Miles, which was way down at 217 for the decade that is about to be history, according to SSA data. Again, it's that strong "I" sound, and a quick glance at a graph shows that Miles is indeed sneaking its way up the charts -- 231 in 2003, and 167 in 2008.



What other naming trends does Wattenberg see coming in the next ten years? "The long A has been the key sound of the past decade," she told us, citing names such as Jacob (#1 for boys) and Ava (#19 for girls). Wattenberg thinks that in addition to the the long "I" of Lila, we will see a rise in the long "U", as in Ruby. While many of Nameberry's top choices for the future were already at or close to the top of the SSA's list for the 2000's (or, like Ruby, appeared on The Name Lady's list first), Wattenberg decided to think outside of the baby naming box. "A name can be soaring [in popularity], and it reaches a point where it tops out," she told us. The names on her list may not be popular right now, but they "are all names with some broad cross-over appeal."

Related: Advice from The Name Lady. For the full list of predictions for the top baby names of the future, visit BabyNameWizard.com.