Most Popular Girl Names of the 2020s

The top 50 girl names by total births in the 2020s decade so far.

What This Ranking Tells Us

Olivia leads the 2020s for girl names, followed by Emma, Charlotte, and Amelia. The decade shows strong preference for feminine names ending in -a (Olivia, Emma, Amelia, Sophia, Mia) and names with literary/historical associations (Charlotte, Eleanor, Evelyn). Nature-inspired names (Willow, Luna, Ivy) have risen dramatically. The top girl names are more evenly distributed than boy names — the gap between #1 and #50 is smaller, reflecting greater diversity in naming choices for girls.

What the Data Says About This Ranking

This ranking lists 50 names drawn from the Social Security Administration's baby-name archive, filtered and sorted by decade total. The #1 entry is Olivia with a decade total of 82,208, followed by Emma at 72,819 and Charlotte at 64,583. The bottom of the list, Leah (21,136), helps define the cutoff qualifying a name for inclusion here. Every name in this ranking meets the SSA's five-occurrence minimum threshold for public disclosure, so private rare names are excluded from consideration.

Across all 50 ranked entries, the average decade total is 34,949, giving a statistical center of gravity for what "popular" means in this specific ranking context. Olivia leads the 2020s for girl names, followed by Emma, Charlotte, and Amelia. Rankings of this type are sensitive to how the underlying data is cut: a top-50 list reflects different signals than a top-500 list, and combining spelling variants (Sophia + Sofia) versus keeping them separate — as the SSA does — produces materially different orderings. The rankings displayed here use the SSA's raw spelling-specific data without combining variants.

Because the SSA updates its baby-name files annually (typically each May), this ranking can shift year over year as new birth cohorts are added and historical revisions are applied. Names that appear to be rising or falling should be interpreted against the five-year-minimum sample sizes SSA requires; short-term movement on a single-year basis can be noisy. Source: Social Security Administration, Baby Names Data. This page summarizes publicly released SSA data and is provided for research and informational purposes only; it is not intended as personal naming advice or a recommendation of any specific name for a given child.

# Name Decade Total
1 Olivia 82,208
2 Emma 72,819
3 Charlotte 64,583
4 Amelia 63,332
5 Sophia 62,120
6 Mia 57,007
7 Isabella 56,884
8 Ava 55,555
9 Evelyn 46,564
10 Harper 40,674
11 Luna 40,025
12 Camila 39,383
13 Sofia 37,006
14 Elizabeth 35,052
15 Eleanor 34,284
16 Gianna 34,030
17 Scarlett 32,606
18 Abigail 32,376
19 Emily 32,127
20 Ella 32,032
21 Chloe 31,336
22 Avery 31,306
23 Aria 30,891
24 Mila 30,848
25 Penelope 30,743
26 Violet 30,456
27 Hazel 30,263
28 Nora 30,151
29 Aurora 29,772
30 Layla 29,662
31 Ellie 29,523
32 Lily 29,150
33 Madison 27,454
34 Nova 26,808
35 Grace 26,358
36 Isla 26,151
37 Zoe 25,453
38 Eliana 25,123
39 Riley 24,744
40 Willow 24,067
41 Emilia 23,635
42 Lucy 23,541
43 Victoria 23,505
44 Ivy 23,423
45 Stella 22,960
46 Zoey 22,765
47 Hannah 22,213
48 Naomi 21,987
49 Elena 21,337
50 Leah 21,136

Source: Social Security Administration, Baby Names Data — U.S. Social Security Administration, Baby Names from Social Security Card Applications (ssa.gov).

Source: SSA Baby Names Methodology — names with fewer than 5 annual occurrences are excluded to protect privacy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are girl names more diverse than boy names?

Research consistently shows parents are more adventurous with girl names. Girl name popularity is more spread out — the top 10 boy names account for a larger share of total births than the top 10 girl names. Parents feel more social pressure to give boys traditional, established names while feeling freer to experiment with girls.

What naming trends define the 2020s for girls?

Key trends include: vintage revival names (Eleanor, Hazel, Violet), nature names (Willow, Luna, Ivy), names ending in -a or -ia (Olivia, Sophia, Amelia), strong literary associations (Charlotte, Eleanor), and crossover names from previously male-associated names (Emerson, Quinn). There is also growing interest in unique spellings and international names.

Nearby Rankings

Compare top two: Olivia vs Emma → or pick any two names →

Data sourced from official U.S. government datasets. See our methodology for details.