The Social Security Administration’s baby name list is a free, searchable database of every first name given to U.S. babies since 1880, available at ssa.gov/oact/babynames.1Social Security Administration. Popular Baby Names Enter any birth year after 1879, pick how deep you want to go (top 20, 50, 100, 500, or 1,000), and the tool returns a table split by sex showing each name’s rank, the number of births, and the percentage of total births that year. The list is built from a 100 percent sample of Social Security card applications, not a survey or estimate.2Data.gov. Baby Names from Social Security Card Applications – National Data
What the 2025 List Shows
The SSA publishes the previous year’s rankings each May, usually around Mother’s Day. The May 2026 release covers 2025 births. Liam took the top boys’ spot for the ninth year in a row, and Olivia repeated as the most popular girls’ name.3Social Security Administration. 2025’s Most Popular Baby Names
Girls’ top ten: Olivia, Charlotte, Emma, Amelia, Sophia, Mia, Isabella, Evelyn, Sofia, Eliana. Boys’ top ten: Liam, Noah, Oliver, Theodore, Henry, James, Elijah, Mateo, William, Lucas. Sofia and Sophia both appear because each spelling is counted on its own.
Counting Rules That Change What You See
Every Spelling Is Its Own Name
Catherine and Katherine get separate entries with separate counts, so a name’s apparent popularity depends on which spelling you type.3Social Security Administration. 2025’s Most Popular Baby Names If you want a fuller picture of a name’s use, check the common variants individually and add the counts yourself.
Hyphens and Spaces Disappear
Before counting, the SSA strips hyphens and spaces. Julie-Anne, Julie Anne, and Julieanne all collapse into one entry, Julieanne.4Social Security Administration. Background Information for Popular Names A hyphenated compound name will not appear in the results as written.
Names Given to Fewer Than Five Babies Are Hidden
To keep any individual child from being identifiable, the SSA excludes any name that appears fewer than five times in a given year and geographic area.5Social Security Administration. Popular Baby Names If your search returns nothing, the name most likely fell below that cutoff rather than being missing from the records.
Reading the Percentage Column
Rank alone can mislead. A name ranked first in 1950 accounted for a much larger share of all births than a name ranked first in 2025, because parents now spread their choices across many more names. The percentage column tells you how dominant a name actually was in its year.
Reports Beyond the Yearly Search
Popularity by Decade
The decade view pools all births across a ten-year span and ranks names by total count. Decades run back to the 1880s, so you can watch generational shifts without opening one year at a time.6Social Security Administration. Popular Baby Names by Decade Names that bounced around the annual charts often look far steadier on the decade view.
Change in Popularity
This report compares two consecutive years and highlights the biggest rank movements. Only names that appeared in the top 1,000 in at least one of the two years are eligible, so a rare name that briefly spikes will not show up.7Social Security Administration. Change in Popularity The names that move the most are usually rising from lower ranks, since already-popular names have less room to climb.
State Rankings
State reports show either the top 100 names for a chosen state and year, or the top five names across every state for a single year.8Social Security Administration. Popular Names by State Regional preferences vary enough that a name in the national top ten can sit much lower in a particular state.
U.S. territories are tracked separately. Births in Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are not included in the national totals or the standard state reports; you have to open the territories page to see them.9Social Security Administration. Popular Names by Territory
Downloading the Full Dataset
If you want to run your own analysis, the SSA offers the full data as zipped downloads instead of one-off searches: national data (about 7 MB), state data (about 26 MB), and territory data (about 201 KB).5Social Security Administration. Popular Baby Names Each zip includes a readme. The files are flat records of name, sex, year of birth, and count, easy to open in a spreadsheet or any analysis tool. The same five-occurrence privacy rule applies, so rare names are missing from the downloads too. All records reflect a 100 percent sample of Social Security card applications as of March 2026.4Social Security Administration. Background Information for Popular Names