Popularity...by country? state? county?

EmmaRain

I've heard lots of people on here say that a name is super popular and they, therefore, wouldn't use it. I look at the US census list each year and I've often wondered if a name is only popular in a concentrated area.

I was just checking out the figures for my state and I noticed that names that people on here say are extremely popular are actually quite rare in my state.

For example, only 4,000 Olivias were born in my entire state since 1990. Out of the population, that is not a significant number. In comparison, there were over 13,000 Ashleys. There were less than 140 Harpers, and only about 700 Isabels. Both of those are names that people have told me are uber-popular. In fact, they are not even in the top 500 names in my state.

So, when considering a name, do you look at nationwide popularity or just where you live?

*edited to update yr.

kaitde

When looking for a name, I look nationwide, only because I had no idea that you could look by state! Haha, what website was that?

tct1219

i look at both, but nationwide is more important to me as we don't plan on always living here and even if we did, i don't want my kids to have names that are super popular anywhere.

EmmaRain

kaitde:

When looking for a name, I look nationwide, only because I had no idea that you could look by state! Haha, what website was that?

The largest newspaper in our state compiled the census data for the state and made an interactive name site. You can see every name given in our state, its popularity since 1990, and its rank for each gender. If you google your state, there may be something similar out there for where you live. Babynamewizard.com has a map tool also, but I haven't used it much.

tct1219

kaitde:

When looking for a name, I look nationwide, only because I had no idea that you could look by state! Haha, what website was that?

https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/namesbystate.html

cabana1

Here's another website to check by state:

https://nametrends.net

As long as our name choices are not in the top 30 nationwide for the past few years, we have no issues.

smismar

I guess I'd be curious about how many of those 4000 Olivias were born in the last 5 years.  I'd bet it's the majority.  And I'd guess that most of the Ashleys were born during the '90s.

juniper19

I look at both nationwide, and the list released by the city department of health.  NYC's list is usually pretty different from national list so it is good to check both (for me since I live in NYC).

starsmaycollide

I look nationally. But, I will say that it is interesting ?finding out if particular names are more or less popular in my state than on the SS list- ?things definitely vary by region.

For instance, Caleb is # 36 nationally, but in my state it was #11!

On the other hand, ?Grace is # 20 nationally, but is all the way down at # 71 in my state. I was really surprised by that because I assumed it was a lot more popular than that.

KappaUCF20

I'm glad you posted this because, for some reason, I never really thought about looking up the names in our state.  I'm glad I did though because now I feel better about our choices (our favorite boy name, Aidan, isn't even in the top 30 so that makes me happy!  I just assumed it was in the top 10).

kegallagh

I look at the state. The Top 10 (or even Top 100 for that matter) can be extremely different on the West coast than the East coast. For example, Ashley is still #4 in CA. I never would have thought that.