Browse our analysis articles on baby and pet names.
Jannik Sinner arrives at Roland Garros on a 29-match winning streak. His name — and Italian boy names broadly — are having a quiet but measurable moment in American naming.
Paco Lopez rode Napoleon Solo to Preakness glory. His name is a case study in how Spanish naming culture operates — and why 'Paco' deserves more recognition in the U.S.
Matt Olson is approaching 300 home runs, a milestone that reframes everything. And Matthew — the name behind the milestone — deserves the same reframing in baby naming culture.
Nick Kurtz tied Barry Bonds' walk record. We looked at both names in the SSA data — and found a story about rarity, patience, and what it means for a name to outlast its era.
James Wood hit a walk-off inside-the-park grand slam. It's also fueling curiosity about 'Wood' and the broader trend of surnames moving to the first-name slot.
Napoleon Solo won the Preakness Stakes, and people are suddenly Googling 'Napoleon' as a baby name. The crossover between racehorse names and baby names is weirder — and richer — than you'd expect.
Jalen Brunson's 22-point fourth-quarter comeback put his name back in headlines. The SSA data tells a richer story about what Jalen means in American naming culture.
Victor Wembanyama dropped 41 points and 24 rebounds in double OT. We checked the SSA charts — and the data on Victor is more surprising than the stat line.
Shohei Ohtani's historic streak is rewriting baseball records. We dug into the SSA data to see if it's rewriting baby name charts too.
For the first time since the 1920s, American parents are genuinely open to European names that don't feel Anglo — Nordic, Iberian, and Finnish names are all gaining ground.
A 27-game hit streak and a name that has never entered the SSA top 5000 — Ildemaro Vargas represents baseball's invisible naming frontier.
National Pet Week's 2026 theme sparked a question: do pandemic-era pet names — heavy on human names like Henry and Olivia — reveal something about loneliness?