Expert guides, trends, and data-driven analysis on baby names.
The popular theory says hurricane names get ruined. The SSA record disagrees: Katrina and Sandy are the exceptions, not the rule. Erin is highly unlikely to follow them, and understanding why tells you something specific about how Americans actually grieve names.
Wednesday Season 2 Part 1 dropped this week. The first season moved the name Wednesday +35 percent in 2023 SSA data and accelerated Raven, Enid, and the broader gothic register. Whether any of that survives the second-season test is what the data will tell us in 2027.
Sydney has been declining since 2010. American Eagle's controversial new campaign is about to clarify the trajectory. Names don't typically die from celebrity association — they accumulate a tax that shows up in the next year's birth-cohort numbers.
Reed, Sue, Ben, Johnny. Marvel's Fantastic Four didn't pick those names — Stan Lee did, in 1961. The asymmetric way today's parents are willing to use them is one of the cleanest demonstrations of how vintage naming actually functions.
Connie Francis died at 87 just as TikTok rediscovered her 1962 record. The thing TikTok actually rediscovered isn't her. It's a sound register — short i, terminal ee, half-rhyme — that American baby naming has been quietly missing for fifty years.
Last week's viral Astronomer scandal turned Andy into the kind of name parents whisper about. The historical record on Karen, Chad, and others suggests the name won't disappear — it will quietly age out of new usage instead.
After Snyderverse, Clark fell from the SSA top 320 to outside the top 800. The Gunn-era Superman is the first cultural product in years that could plausibly move it back. The data on superhero names suggests it won't be quick.
Pixar's Elio flopped on a $250M budget. The interesting reading isn't about Pixar — it's about what its title says about a decade of soft, vowel-heavy boy names that the algorithm finally optimized into exhaustion.
Championship MVP names follow a predictable timetable in SSA data. After OKC's Game 7 win, Shai is on a clock. The cleaner story is the surname Gilgeous-Alexander, which will not become a baby name no matter how good he gets.
World Pride 2025 in DC reveals a blind spot in how we count baby names. The Social Security Administration cannot, by design, see the most consequential naming decision many Americans now make.
They've been trading the top spots for a decade. But Liam, Noah, and Oliver are three very different names with very different personalities. Here's the full breakdown.
Amber Heard introduced her twins on Mother's Day. Ocean and Agnes frame modern twin-naming poles: hippie-coastal versus vintage-grandmother. The choice signals values.