Like the previous two years, I decided to take a deeper dive into the SSA top 1000 list to see which trends, letters, and sounds are most popular and which are rising/falling in popularity. Here’s what I found!
*All data is based on the top 1000. The percentages have total births (including beyond the top 1000) as the denominator but the numerator only includes names within the top 1000 so realistically every percentage would be slightly higher if names outside the top 1000 were taken into account.
Length
The average (mean) length for boys’ names was 5.67 letters (same as last year)
The average (mean) length for girls’ names was 5.98 letters (slightly shorter than last year)
Top 10 Popularity
7.25% of boys received top 10 names
7.01% of girls received top 10 names
– both of these percentages are slightly lower than last year
The -lyn and -lee names for girls are still trendy, but less so than last year:
– 3.27% of girls received names ending in the ‘lyn’ sound (down from 3.43% last year)
– 6.50% of girls received names ending in the ‘lee’ sound (down from 6.75% last year)
Meanwhile, only 0.97% of boys received names ending in the ‘lee’ sound (same as last year)
6.06% of boys received names ending in “-er”, which is slightly more than last year
– However, when you include other spellings (like [name_u]Connor[/name_u] or Trevor), the total number of boys receiving names ending with the “er” sound is slightly lower than last year (a total of 6.97% this year vs 7.00% total last year)
23.84% of boys received names ending in the N sound (23.43% actually end in the letter N and 0.41 more end in the N sound)
– This is down from 24.61% last year
Of the top 1000 boys’ names, 112 are [name_f]English[/name_f] word names
– This rises to 142 word names if alternate spellings like [name_m]Kyng[/name_m] or [name_m]Kannon[/name_m] are included
– [name_f]English[/name_f] word names went to 8.49% of boys, or 9.69% when alternate spellings are included
Of the top 1000 girls’ names, 109 are [name_f]English[/name_f] word names
– This rises to 148 word names if alternate spellings like [name_f]Journee[/name_f] and [name_u]Skye[/name_u] are included
– [name_f]English[/name_f] word names went to 9.17% of girls, or 10.97% when alternate spellings are included
**I calculated word names differently than I did last year. This year, I only included a name as a word name if the origins of the name are definitely or most likely related to the word. Last year any name that was also an [name_f]English[/name_f] word counted even if they were unrelated. So names like [name_u]Will[/name_u] or [name_m]Jimmy[/name_m], which counted as word names last year, did not count this year. Also, “alternate spellings,” which I haven’t counted in the past, had to be clearly derived from the word for me to count them. For example [name_f]Mary[/name_f] does not count as an alternate spelling of the words merry or marry because the origin is different.
In addition to [name_f]English[/name_f] words, 18 boys names and 37 girls names in the top 1000 are Spanish words
– This is with the understanding that a) the SSA doesn’t record accent marks, b) some of the words are spelled the same in Spanish and [name_f]English[/name_f] (even more when accent marks are excluded), and c) I can’t tell from the list whether people are using the Spanish or [name_f]English[/name_f] pronunciations (like with [name_u]Angel[/name_u], for example)
– Like with the [name_f]English[/name_f] words, I didn’t count names that are spelled the same as Spanish words but are unrelated (like [name_u]Van[/name_u] or Ella)
Vowel Endings Breakdown
Girls
– 26.75% of girls received names ending in A
– 12.37% of girls received names ending in E
– 2.36% of girls received names ending in I
– 0.08% of girls received names ending in O (though it reaches 0.66% including names ending in the O sound but not the letter O)
– No top 1000 girls’ names end in U
– 7.95% of girls received names ending in Y
– 3.71% of girls received names that end in vowel sounds but not vowel letters (Hannah, [name_u]Willow[/name_u], etc)
= 53.22% of girls received names ending in vowels/vowel sounds
Boys
1.56% of boys received names ending in A
4.95% of boys received names ending in E
2.14% of boys received names ending in I
4.94% of boys received names ending in O
0.25% of boys received names ending in U
3.54% of boys received names ending in Y
4.32% of boys received names ending in vowel sounds but not vowel letters (Elijah, [name_u]Shiloh[/name_u], etc)
= 21.70% of boys received names that end in vowels/vowel sounds
Anyway, I hope others find this as interesting as I do! I think that the most surprising thing to me is that more boys received names ending in N than received names ending all the vowels put together. I’d love to hear your thoughts!