US birth statistics by State

General Name Discussion
1

[name_m]Hi[/name_m] Everyone,

we are expecting our first in [name_f]May[/name_f] and while trying to come up with a name list my DH keeps mentioning names that I like but that are too popular for my comfort. (Seriously he’s suggested [name_f]Emma[/name_f], [name_f]Olivia[/name_f], [name_f]Isabel[/name_f], etc).

I realize that we should just choose a name we both like and no worry about popularity but I just don’t want my little girl to be [name_f]Emma[/name_f] X for every class. I figured I’d try to figure out how popular (by %) her name was in the three states we live/work in. (The joys of the nations capital).

Here is my question… does anyone know where I can find gender specific statistics on lives births per state? I was hoping to compare them to the SSA state name lists for 2013/2014. So far I’m only found the total number of live births per state on a fact sheet published by the CDC (even the most popular name by state comes in at less than 1% of total live births for the year) but I’d feel better if I could get a number by gender.

Yup I agree less than 1% seems really silly to worry about over popularity of a name. Hopefully the era of 1000000 Jenns and Kates etc is over.

Thanks for your help!!!

(I realize this isn’t really name related but I figured this might be the forum where people would know.)

2

I don’t know if this is exactly what you are looking for, but the SSA does have list by state. Popular Baby Names

You have to downloand the whole file, then click on your state. It goes from like 1970 (or earlier, at least 5 births for the name to show) to 2014. One sex is first all the way down to 2014, then it switches. I do command F to search (I’m on a mac). I hope this is what you were looking for!

ETA: If you want to see the list that rank the names based on popularity of spellings combined check out 2014 GIRLS USA.xlsx - Google Sheets

3

@ottertails: The downloadable files go back to 1910 for the state-level stats (in some cases that far back it’d be for the territory that would become said state, i.e. NM, AZ, AK, and [name_m]HI[/name_m]). Before that the numbers would be too small based on the number of people who got a Social Security number (same reason the national stats don’t go back before 1880).

4

Thanks Ladies. I do have those and was hoping to compare them to how many baby girls were born in each state we work/live in (they are all a 20min drive from each other).
I just don’t want to be turned off by a name because it’s in the top ten if it’s used for less than 5% of babies born.