Find Popular Baby Names – Last Year, 10 Years Ago, Or The Year You Were Born

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baby-name-on-ankle-by-kaatjevervoort.jpg There are lots of fun ways to choose baby names.

I mean, you don’t want a name that’s too trendy or a name that your child will hate. Yet you want a fairly unique name, right?

Well, here’s another handy resource for you — one that I bet most people wouldn’t think of.

It’s the Social Security Administration!

 

Yep, the SSA keeps track of the most popular names each year, based on newly registered Social Security numbers. What a neat way to see which names were popular each year!

  • You can find the top 10 boys names and the top 10 girls names from the previous year.
     
  • You can also search for a specific name — to see it’s ranking.
     
  • Or search a specific year — to see what names were popular that year.

The database of names maintained by the Social Security Administration is a great way to see how certain names have become more or less popular over time.

Just for fun… look up the year you were born to see which names were the most popular back then! (My name was ranked #225 in the year I was born. Then, in 2004 it was ranked #999. After that, it never made the top 1000 names for any year.)