Here is a link to the SSA Popular Baby Names list for 2007. If you haven’t already taken a look at it, where have you been? 🙂
Now it’s time for my analysis. You might call it a little “too much,” but I enjoyed doing it. First, some casual observances:
1) The names have spread out a little. In 2006, 1.0249% of girls were named Emily and “only” 0.9167% were in 2007. In fact 63 of the top 100 names went down in percentage.
2) Four names have changed over in the top 100. Those leaving the top 100: Jayla (#99 to #132), Jenna (#88 to #103), Natalia (#94 to #109), and Rebecca (#96 to #105). Those entering the top 100: Bailey (#112 to #83), Gracie (#103 to #96), Molly (#105 to #97), and Sophie (#125 to #82).
3) I’m sorry if you like this name, but I hate the name Nevaeh. In case you don’t know, it’s Heaven spelled backwards. It’s one of the top movers of the year too. What I hate even more is the fact that some people (0.0146% of total female births or #891) can’t even spell it right. Neveah is more of a pronounciation spelling… but you can no longer say it’s Heaven backwards. Ugh.
4) The letter A is the most popular letter to begin a girl’s name in the top 1000. 15.6% of the top 1000 names begins with the letter A. The top 10 letters in order of popularity are A, M, K, J, L, C, S, E, D, and B & R are tied at 10. The least favorite letter is U, which does not have a name in the top 1000. I have a list of the percentages of each letter… if you are as geeky as I am and are interested. Edit: since someone asked, here they are. 🙂
Now, I want to show you the highest mover of the year – Addison. Thanks to Grey’s Anatomy, this name has shot up the girls’ ranks and the former boy name is now convincingly a girl name (the boy Addison fell from #561 in 2006 to #692 in 2007). It moved from #28 in 2006 to #11 in 2007, but more importantly, the number of girls who have that name in comparison to the total number of births in 2007 increased by 0.2017% from 2006. Here is the rest of the top 100 ranked according to their increase in usage. (Since wordpress is annoying me in terms of formatting, I have linked my spreadsheets for you to view. The “Difference” column in this spreadsheet means the percentage of total females in 2007 minus the percentage of total females in 2006.)
And now for the “playground test” as my good friend Katherine put it. It is always interesting to see how many girls are named the same name, but with different spellings. So, I took the entire top 1000 and added the percentages of total births of each name that had the same pronounciation. A lot of these may be under contention (like Caroline and Carolyn) but if there is any possibility that they names are pronounced the same, I included them. I hope I got them all. So, according to the sound of the name, here is the new top 100. As you can see, Sophia/Sofia is the new #1 in front of Emily.
So, do you guys have any thoughts?
Filed under: top 100, Uncategorized | 8 Comments »