Names tracked
105,966+
U.S. Social Security Administration · 1880–2025 · 50 states + DC
Explore 105,966+
US baby names.
Year-by-year popularity charts · state rankings · decade trends · unisex detection · 145+ years of SSA data, refreshed each release.
- Names
- 105,966+
- Years tracked
- 146
- States + DC
- 51
- Latest year
- 2025
Naming diversity over time
Distinct names per decade (×1,000)
NameAlmanac tracks 105,966+ U.S. baby names; the current #1s are Liam for boys and Olivia for girls.
According to the U.S. Social Security Administration, NameAlmanac covers 105,966+ distinct baby names across 146 years (1880-2025) and all 50 states plus DC. Liam and Olivia are the current #1 boy and girl names nationally. Every name page includes year-by-year trends, decade totals, and state-level rankings derived directly from SSA birth-registration files.
- Liam current #1 boy name
- Olivia current #1 girl name
- 105,966+ names tracked
The national picture
Olivia is the busiest name in current SSA records, 1.6× more common than Liam, the other #1.
- Liam
- current #1 boy name
- Olivia
- current #1 girl name
- 1.6×
- gap between the two #1 names
- 105,966
- names tracked total
Both are drawn from the same current-year ranking, so the 1.6× gap reflects real usage, not different time periods.
Where America's baby names are recorded
Every state files its own birth records with the SSA — some carry far more history than others.
Scale: 452K–7.1M 7.1M–13.6M 13.6M–20.2M 20.2M–26.8M 26.8M–33.4M
What 146 years of data reveal
Four things you won't find on a baby-name list
3,502
Evergreen names
Recorded in every era from 1900 to 2025 - names like Mary, Anna, and Emma that never left.
21,131
Modern arrivals
Distinct names first recorded since 2010, new coinages, blends, and creative spellings.
60,404
Peak-decade variety (2000s)
Distinct names in the widest decade on record, the high-water mark for naming diversity.
32,020
Names still in use (2025)
Names given to five or more babies in the latest SSA year, the live, active naming pool.
The 2025 U.S. naming landscape
Compared to 146 years of Social Security Administration baby-name records · Updated 2026-06-08
Top boys' name (2025)
Liam 1% #1 this year
Top girls' name (2025)
Olivia 1% #1 this year
Latest data year
2025
The name pool is near its widest ever, about 15× the 1880s.
105,966 distinct names tracked across 146 years, 50 states, and DC. Today's parents pick from a far wider field than parents in 1880; distinct-name counts per decade have plateaued near their 2000s peak (the current decade is still in progress).
Distinct names recorded per decade
The signature decade-by-decade naming-diversity curve
- 1880s 3,951
1880s
3,951 distinct names
- 1890s 5,022
1890s
5,022 distinct names
- 1900s 6,318
1900s
6,318 distinct names
- 1910s 15,258
1910s
15,258 distinct names
- 1920s 18,108
1920s
18,108 distinct names
- 1930s 15,662
1930s
15,662 distinct names
- 1940s 16,297
1940s
16,297 distinct names
- 1950s 18,988
1950s
18,988 distinct names
- 1960s 22,173
1960s
22,173 distinct names
- 1970s
1970s
31,787 distinct names
- 1980s
1980s
38,614 distinct names
- 1990s
1990s
50,448 distinct names
- 2000s
2000s
60,404 distinct names
- 2010s
2010s
60,123 distinct names
- 2020s
2020s
49,956 distinct names
What this shows Peaked in the 2000s at 60,404 distinct names -- 15x the 1880s.
Top Names in 2025
The most popular first initials of 2025
Total US births by the first letter of the baby's name
- A
A
442,055 births
- E
E
278,842 births
- M
M
273,196 births
- L
L
249,003 births
- J
J
246,478 births
- C
C
214,030 births
- S
S
203,489 births
- K 165,894
K
165,894 births
- R 153,608
R
153,608 births
- B 127,359
B
127,359 births
What this shows “A” starts more US babies' names than any other letter - 442,055 in 2025 alone, powered by a wave of A-names like Aria, Aiden, and Amelia.
Old Name, or New Wave?
Today's top 20 boy and girl names, by how long each has been in SSA records (x-axis) and how much of its total use is crammed into a single peak year (y-axis). A long history doesn't mean steady popularity: some of today's favorites are genuinely new phenomena wearing an old name.
Today's top 20 names per sex: history span vs. peak-year concentration
The clearest case: Luna has been in SSA records for 146 years, yet 10.2% of every Luna ever registered was born in a single peak year: a name with an old paper trail but a very recent moment.
Read the chart as a table
| Name | Sex | Years in records | Peak-year share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olivia | Girl | 146 | 3.5% |
| Emma | Girl | 146 | 2.9% |
| Amelia | Girl | 146 | 4.6% |
| Charlotte | Girl | 146 | 3% |
| Mia | Girl | 93 | 4.8% |
| Sophia | Girl | 146 | 5.1% |
| Isabella | Girl | 146 | 5.5% |
| Evelyn | Girl | 146 | 2.2% |
| Ava | Girl | 146 | 5.2% |
| Sofia | Girl | 145 | 5.2% |
| Camila | Girl | 112 | 6.6% |
| Harper | Girl | 55 | 7.8% |
| Luna | Girl | 146 | 10.2% |
| Eleanor | Girl | 146 | 2.5% |
| Violet | Girl | 146 | 4.1% |
| Aurora | Girl | 146 | 7.1% |
| Elizabeth | Girl | 146 | 1.2% |
| Eliana | Girl | 65 | 10.8% |
| Hazel | Girl | 146 | 2.5% |
| Chloe | Girl | 146 | 4.7% |
| Liam | Boy | 79 | 6.2% |
| Noah | Boy | 146 | 3.9% |
| Oliver | Boy | 146 | 5.7% |
| Theodore | Boy | 146 | 4.2% |
| James | Boy | 146 | 1.8% |
| Henry | Boy | 146 | 1.6% |
| Mateo | Boy | 122 | 9% |
| Elijah | Boy | 146 | 3.7% |
| Lucas | Boy | 145 | 3.9% |
| William | Boy | 146 | 1.6% |
| Benjamin | Boy | 146 | 1.9% |
| Levi | Boy | 146 | 4.6% |
| Ezra | Boy | 146 | 8.3% |
| Sebastian | Boy | 145 | 4.7% |
| Jack | Boy | 146 | 1.7% |
| Daniel | Boy | 146 | 1.9% |
| Samuel | Boy | 146 | 1.8% |
| Michael | Boy | 146 | 2.1% |
| Ethan | Boy | 144 | 4.6% |
| Asher | Boy | 146 | 7.6% |
Trending Names
Biggest growth from 2019 to 2025
Boy Rising Boys' Names
Can't Decide? Try the Randomizer
Pick a category and discover 3 random names from 105,966+ in our database.
Hit Shuffle! to discover names.
Baby Name Guides
Understand naming trends and make data-informed choices.
How SSA Name Data Works
Where the data comes from and what it covers.
What Drives Popularity
Why names rise, fall, and cycle through generations.
Choosing a Unique Name
Find the sweet spot between common and bizarre.
Trends by Decade
How naming trends shifted from the 1920s to today.
Why Names Rise & Fall
Patterns behind name popularity changes over time.
Original Research
Data-driven analyses computed live from the full SSA archive.
Top Male Names, All-Time
The all-time cumulative leaderboard for boys, 1880-present.
Top Female Names, All-Time
The all-time cumulative leaderboard for girls, 1880-present.
Top Names of the 2020s
Which names are defining this decade so far.
Top Names of the 2010s
A look back at the decade before this one.
Most Balanced Unisex Names
Names used almost equally for boys and girls.
According to the Social Security Administration, as of June 2026 the agency's public-use baby-name files documented 105,966 distinct names across 2,181,032 national year-by-name records and 6,696,687 state-level records, spanning 1880-2025. See our methodology for the full extraction and privacy-suppression rules.
What to do with today's data
- Ailany has grown 8395% since 2019 (84 to 7,136 recent births) -- the fastest riser in this year's data. Ailany's profile
- Names starting with "A" account for the most births in 2025 (442,055) -- see the full first-letter breakdown when you browse by letter. Browse A-Z
- Deciding between two names? Run them head to head. Compare names
- Want the headline numbers in one place? Key findings
Trend figures compare 2019 to the latest SSA release year; a name must have at least 500 recent births to qualify as a trending entry.
About this data
How NameAlmanac works, and why you can trust these numbers
What this site is
NameAlmanac is a plain-language reference for U.S. baby name popularity, covering 146 years of naming history. Every name, birth count, and ranking is derived from exactly one upstream dataset: the Social Security Administration's National Baby Names dataset. We do not supplement it with crowdsourced data, user submissions, hospital records, or third-party estimates.
Editorial process
- Source. Download the SSA's national and state-level name files directly from ssa.gov, one text file per year, each containing (name, sex, count) records.
- Verify. Validate every record (three fields, positive integer counts, sex codes limited to M/F), confirm year ranges are continuous, and check that no records were lost during processing, our build pipeline is deterministic and reproducible.
- Publish. Aggregate cumulative statistics, compute rankings and trend metrics, and tag each database build with the exact SSA data vintage it was built from, so any number can be traced back to the source file.
Editorial independence & corrections
The NameAlmanac editorial team does not interpolate or estimate suppressed records; where the SSA has no data, we show nothing. If you believe any data on the site is inaccurate, or have questions about the methodology, contact us with the specific page URL and concern; we investigate every report. See our methodology for the full data-processing pipeline and source attribution.
Frequently asked
Where does NameAlmanac get its baby name data?
All name data comes from official Social Security Administration (SSA) records, which track every name given to at least 5 babies in a given year. The dataset spans from 1880 to the most recent year available.
How many baby names are in the NameAlmanac database?
NameAlmanac includes over 105,966 unique baby names from the SSA database, covering 146 years of naming trends across all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Is NameAlmanac free to use?
Yes, NameAlmanac is completely free. You can search names, view popularity trends, browse state-level data, and explore decade rankings without any signup or payment.
Can I see how popular a name is in my state?
Yes. Every name page includes state-by-state popularity data, and you can also browse state-decade pages to see the top names for any state in any decade from the 1910s onward.