Top Names By Year

Guess the baby In the New York Times Magazine, Peggy Orenstein tries to wade through possibly one of the most important decisions she will ever make regarding the welfare of her unborn child: Picking out a name. She explores a number of avenues involved in names (like breakthrough sounds, such as the "djeh" in Jennifer, as Harvard sociologist Stanley Liebserson explains).

Orenstein also mentions an amazing website, the Popular Baby Names site from the Social Security Administration, which she calls a "sinkhole" for a web addict. Which it truly is: Gothamist looked up "Jacob" and "Jennifer" for their respective rankings, and of late, Jacob has been number one for the past few years while Jennifer has been in the 20s. And since everything is a battle, Jen happily cedes this one since it doesn't mean anything for her own generation, which was Jennifer-mad: Her best friend from the third grade (to present) is Jennifer Jung, no joke.

Gothamist covered the names of celebrities' children a while back. Now is the time to become a psychotherapist because these these tots, like Romeo Beckham, will almost certainly need it.

Jen's identity crisis (and the song she likes) and Jake's alter-ego. Spike Lee's name issues involve suing media conglomerates. You've probably done it before, but do it again: Find your Smurf name.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in Miscellaneous on July 9, 2003 10:07 AM

Comments [rss]

eebmore

On our generation's "Jen-maddness":

Just wanted to pipe in on this and tell you that in my 7th grade us history class, there were:

31 students

14 girls

and the astonishing number of

8 jen's.

Cinnamon

My name rarely makes the "top baby names" lists, but often makes the "top PET names" lists.

Life is hell for me in dog parks and petting zoos across America. I will hear my name called, only to turn around and see an irish setter bounding across the grass or, possibly, a chesnut pony being saddled.

Gives new meaning to the term 'horsey set' don't it?

p.s. Yes, it is my birth name

p.p.s. No, I'm not a "dancer"

Ben

For a list of the top 10 most popular baby names in NYC, broken down by hispanic, african american, white, asian & pacific islander,

see:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/public/press03/pr033-0408.html

j0sh

for the record, "jacob" is the 457th most common name in the auto loan apps.. apparently you've got a pretty high-class name right there. FYI there are about five times as many apps with the name "crystal" as there are with "jacob".

Yelena

What was most curious to me about Orenstein's article was that it bore an eerily striking resemblance to an article written on the online magazine I edit, either/or, by one of our writers, Brian Henderson. I wrote to the Times about it on Monday and have since received no response, but if you have an inkling to be paranoid, I strongly advise a read, and not just as a gimmicky traffic driving attempt, but as an instance of potential dodginess at the Times.

http://www.either-or.net/archives/000275.html

DodgeThis

Im on Josh's list not once but TWICE!! I guess i have a really high priced car.

jake

if you notice, my name, jacob, has risen like a rocket the last ten years from like the low 20s to #1. now, most of these "new" jacobs are probably suckers- but one day we are going to form an army and rule over the rest of you like englishmen in the 19th century.

also: notice jacob doesn't come up on josh's auto-loan list- could it be that all jacobs are so successful they are paying for their cars in cash, or possibly jewels? i'm looking into it.

abe

Great. My Smurf name: Stalker Smurf.

Karru

I've never run into another named like me so, yes, there is no danger of others turning around when my name is called out. Then again, my name gets butchered so often that I'll turn around to most anything.

Glenn

I spent about 20 minutes on that names site yesterday. Naturally I checked the trends of my name (waning in popularity) and those of grandmothers and great aunts (waning quite a bit...Lucille and Betty aren't what they use to be). A great way to kill time...which I've done many times at the US Census website as well.

j0sh

this is utterly useless, but here are the top 25 names of people who have appled for auto loans online :)

michael

james

robert

john

david

william

jennifer

richard

lisa

mark

jason

michelle

charles

joseph

thomas

brian

christopher

mary

anthony

angela

daniel

kevin

kimberly

linda

melissa

Justin Case

Holy Crap, my name (no, it's not Justin) has soared through the rankings in the last 10 years from the low 800's to the mid 400's. It looks like it's returned to the same level of popularity it had in the first decade of the last century. Huh, I guess these things do go in cycles.

Jen

Yeah, well, at least when someone says "Karru" 30 other people don't turn around.

Peyton and Liam are both very posh sounding.

Karru

I've got a sneaking suspicion that my name isn't going to be cracking the top 1000 any time soon.

abe

Hey, in the last thirteen years I've gone from 933 to 820-something. At that rate Abram will be in the top ten in...um...3010 or so.

Kristen

Hey... did you notice that both my kids made the article. Liam was on the list... and 'Peyton' was described as being part of the Ralph Lauren 'horsey set'... (along with Kendall)... exciting stuff!