Top Baby Names in California, 2020s — Most Popular Boys & Girls Names

What the Data Says About the 2020s in California

During the 2020s (2020–2024), the Social Security Administration recorded 520,117 births across the top 50 boy and top 50 girl names in California. The decade's leading boy name was Noah with 13,114 births, while Olivia was the top girl name with 10,856 births. The top 50 boys in this decade collectively accounted for 290,324 births versus 229,793 for the top 50 girls — a common SSA pattern in which the boy-name pool is more concentrated among fewer high-frequency choices. These totals represent only names appearing five or more times per year in California; rarer names fall below the SSA's privacy-disclosure threshold and are excluded.

The 2020s sits within a specific cultural window of U.S. naming history. Recent decades like the 2020s reflect a distinctive modern pattern — shorter names, vowel-heavy endings, and revived classic forms (Liam, Noah, Olivia, Emma) replacing the trendy -aiden/-ayden constructions of the prior era. Noah and Olivia leading California during this window reflects how regional preferences interact with broader national trends.

Decade totals are computed by summing SSA state-year records for California across all ten years of the 2020s. Because the SSA suppresses any name with fewer than five annual occurrences in a state, the true number of unique names given in California during this decade is larger than what this page lists. The dataset also treats every spelling as a separate name — for example, Kayla and Kaylah are tracked independently — so combined-spelling totals would shift the rankings somewhat. This page is provided for informational and research purposes and does not constitute naming, legal, or genealogical advice.