Maybe my wife and I were rare, but we had chosen our kid’s names before we were even married so when it came time to make the call on their names it was a no-brainer. We also subscribed to the tactic of not telling anyone their names until after they were born so as not to cause people to second guess us. At the time my son was born, in 2005, we discovered the Social Security Administration’s baby name database and it was fun to see data backing up what we already knew; there are a lot of Madisons running around.

On a funny tweet exchange this morning I clicked over to the SSA site again and I looked at the most popular names for the last 100 years and I was immediately blown away by the staying power of the top 5 names for both boys and girls.

With the exception of 1960, Michael is number 1 from 1954 to 1998 and has (and still is) been in the top 5 since 1949. The curious thing for me is when and why various names pop into the charts and become popular. For Example; Emma was the name of the baby that Rachel ‘gave birth’ to on Friends in May of 2002 and there is an immediate spike in the popularity of the name Emma. Emma is ranked number 13 for girls in 2001 but jumps to number 4 in 2002 and number 2 in 2003 (where it stays for 4 years).

Would the pervasiveness of social media have had an effect on spikes like Emma or on staying power of names like Michael (number 1 for 44 years) and Mary (Number one for 46 years)?

All cultural norms aside, my guess is Gen-x parents prefer individuality for their kids more than baby boomer parents in regards to names, I think we will see some changes in the way this data trends year over year as a result of new media and our expanded social consciousness. That is to say, as expecting parents see babies being born in their expanded social circles via new media to parents who have chosen the same name they had in mind they may be likely to change their mind. Yes, Adele will be a popular name this year (not in top 1000 in 2009; number 908 for 2010) but my guess is that it won’t have the staying power of Emma (top 4 the last 8 years).

I’m intrigued by this data and how new media may affect it. It gives a measurable queue to the reach of new media in our culture.

What are your predictions?

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