Editorial & Corrections Policy

How these pages are produced

Every number on NameAlmanac originates in a public SSA dataset. We download the raw files published on ssa.gov — the national year-of-birth files (one text file per year, e.g. yob2025.txt) and the state-level files — load them through a documented, version-controlled data pipeline, and render them into name profiles, annual rankings, decade summaries, and state breakdowns using shared templates. No profile is hand-written, and no birth count is typed in by an editor. Each value you see is read directly from the official SSA record.

Our editorial team is responsible for the parts a pipeline cannot decide on its own: which datasets to use, how each metric is defined and labeled, what the methodology says, which derived measures (such as decade aggregates, peak-year detection, trend direction, or a national rank) are computed and how, and what we will not publish. The pipeline then applies those decisions uniformly across every name, year, and state, so the rule that governs one name's page governs all of them.

Sourcing standards

We publish only data that comes from the SSA, and we name the source on every page. Our sources are:

• SSA National Baby Names data: name, sex, and birth count per year, 1880 through 2025, tabulated by the SSA's Office of the Chief Actuary from Social Security card applications.
• SSA State-Level Baby Names data: the same name-sex-year counts broken down by state, 1910 through 2025.

We do not supplement the SSA data with crowdsourced submissions, hospital records, third-party estimates, or scraped content, and we generate no name data ourselves. Where a figure is derived from the official data (for example, a decade total, a trend indicator, or a national rank), the page links to our methodology, which sets out exactly how it is calculated.

Accuracy and validation

Because the data is read straight from SSA files, the most common limitation is the upstream record itself: the SSA suppresses any name-sex-year combination with fewer than five occurrences for privacy, records names exactly as written on the application (so spelling variants are counted separately), and undercounts births from before Social Security registration became near-universal. Our pipeline validates each build before publication — it reconciles row counts, year ranges, and national totals against the SSA's own published figures, and shows a value as unavailable rather than estimating when the source omits or suppresses it.

When we find that a displayed number is wrong, we fix the cause, not the symptom. We trace the value back to the data layer, correct the derivation or processing rule there, and regenerate the affected pages, so the same class of error is resolved everywhere at once rather than patched on a single page.

Editorial independence

NameAlmanac does not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from any brand, agency, or covered entity. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense. Advertisers have no influence over which names we cover or how the data is presented, and they receive no preferential placement. We present the SSA's figures and the caveats that come with them — we do not editorialize the numbers or take a position on whether any name is "good" or "bad."

Update schedule

The SSA releases updated baby-name data once per year, typically in May, covering the previous calendar year. Our database currently runs through 2025, the most recent release. We refresh our database within weeks of each new SSA release and re-stamp the affected pages so the published date reflects when the content genuinely changed. The data vintage in effect is named on every data page, on our About page, and in our methodology.

Corrections process

If a figure looks wrong, please tell us. We treat data-error reports as a priority and follow the same process every time:

1. Report. Email hello@namealmanac.com with the page URL and the figure you are questioning.
2. Verify. We check the value against the official SSA source files for that name, year, or state.
3. Fix at the source. If the figure is wrong on our side, we correct the underlying data or derivation rule and regenerate every page it affects.
4. Note it. If the figure is correct but reflects a known SSA reporting rule (for example, a rare name omitted by the under-five suppression threshold, or a spelling variant counted on its own), we explain the caveat rather than silently changing it.

Some apparent gaps trace back to the SSA itself: rare names and very early years are deliberately incomplete in the source data. When that is the case, we will say so and point you to the official SSA data files so you can verify it directly.

Intended use

NameAlmanac is an informational and research tool. The data describes historical naming patterns recorded by the SSA; it is not advice and should not be treated as a recommendation for or against any name. For full details on coverage, limitations, and calculations, see our methodology and About pages.

Contact

Questions about our standards, methodology, or a specific figure are welcome at hello@namealmanac.com or via our contact page.