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America's Most Popular Baby Names Over The Last Century, Visualized

America's Most Popular Baby Names Over The Last Century, Visualized
Analysis of Social Security data reveals how the most common US baby names have changed over the last 100 years.
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Over on Reddit, user chartr shared the below graphic β€” based on Social Security data β€” illustrating how the most popular baby names for boys and girls have changed in America over the last 100 years.

Between 1920 and 1940, the most popular boy names, by far, were Robert and James β€” while in the same period, a lot of girls were called Mary. Fast-forward to 2022, and Liam takes the lead for boys, while the most popular girls' names are Emma and Olivia.

Interestingly, a higher proportion of American babies shared the same name back in the day than they have in recent years. For example, while almost three percent of all baby boys in the US were named Robert in the late '20s, less than one percent of boys share 2022's most common male baby name.


america most popular baby names past 100 years chartr


Via Reddit.


Comments

  1. Jeff Carter 11 months ago

    Also interesting is that you can see from the data that dispersion across all names is increasing. People are increasingly less likely to pick the most common name.


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