By Elena Marsh
I almost published this piece a month ago on 2023 data, because that’s what I had sitting in front of me. Then the Social Security Administration dropped its 2025 birth-year numbers on May 8, 2026, and I scrapped the draft. Old rankings on a “trends 2026” piece felt like reviewing a restaurant from a menu they stopped serving two years ago — technically words, not actually useful.
So this is the rebuild, and every number in it is computed from the SSA’s complete 2025 data in our own baby names database and cross-checked against the public release.
Methodology: How We Built This Study
Table of Contents
> Data vintage: U.S. Social Security Administration national baby-name data — every name given in the United States from birth years 1880 through 2025 (the 2025 figures released May 8, 2026). > > A note on sourcing: This study is built on the SSA’s complete national dataset — all ~32,000 names recorded in 2025, not a Top-1,000 highlight list — loaded into More4Kids’ own baby-names database, where we computed every ranking, birth-count margin, and rise-or-fall figure ourselves. We then cross-checked the headline numbers against AARP’s published “Most Popular Baby Names of 2025”, and they match to the birth. In short: SSA.gov is the source, the More4Kids database is the analysis, and AARP is the independent check. That’s also why this edition can show you the names fading fastest and the most evenly-split names — not just the Top 10 everyone else reprints.
Prefer to check our math? The full source tables are available on request — see the “Cite or share this study” note at the bottom.
The Top 10 Just Had Its Biggest Shakeup in Years
For the first time in six years, the girls’ Top 10 isn’t just the same eight names reshuffled. Charlotte overtook Emma for the #2 spot behind Olivia — ending Emma’s long run as the perennial runner-up — and Eliana climbed into #10, pushing Ava out of the Top 10 entirely for the first time in recent memory. On the boys’ side the top four held steady: Liam, Noah, Oliver, and Theodore.
| Rank | Boys | Births | Rank | Girls | Births | |—|—|—|—|—|—| | 1 | Liam | 20,818 | 1 | Olivia | 13,544 | | 2 | Noah | 20,358 | 2 | Charlotte | 13,400 | | 3 | Oliver | 14,939 | 3 | Emma | 12,754 | | 4 | Theodore | 13,355 | 4 | Amelia | 12,699 | | 5 | Henry | 12,020 | 5 | Sophia | 12,561 | | 6 | James | 11,945 | 6 | Mia | 11,078 | | 7 | Elijah | 11,111 | 7 | Isabella | 10,666 | | 8 | Mateo | 11,045 | 8 | Evelyn | 9,123 | | 9 | William | 10,545 | 9 | Sofia | 8,252 | | 10 | Lucas | 10,219 | 10 | Eliana | 8,191 |
Source: SSA 2025 national data, analyzed in the More4Kids baby-names database; cross-checked against AARP.
2025’s Tightest Races: How Close These Rankings Really Are
Here’s the angle nobody else’s headline is running: when you actually line up the raw birth counts, several of these “rankings” were separated by a rounding error. Olivia held off Charlotte by just 144 births out of over 13,000 each — the tightest #1-vs-#2 margin in this data. Liam beat Noah by only 460 births, an even smaller margin in percentage terms. And the name everyone will describe as having “fallen out of the Top 10” — Ava — actually lost her spot to Eliana by a mere 459 births, not a collapse, a photo finish.
We computed this ourselves straight from the SSA’s own 2025 birth counts in our database — it’s not a stat you’ll find in anyone else’s coverage. The takeaway: national “rank” makes these names look like they’re in entirely different tiers, when several of 2025’s biggest storylines were decided by a few hundred birth certificates out of tens of thousands.
Kasai: 2025’s Single Fastest-Rising Name
If you want one name that captures how fast a ranking can move in twelve months, it’s Kasai. The name — Japanese and Swahili in origin, meaning “fire” — surged 1,108 rank spots to land at #639 among boys in 2025, the biggest jump SSA’s own data recorded for the year. It wasn’t in the Top 1,000 at all the year before.
Among girls, Klarity — a contemporary respelling of “clarity” — was the SSA’s flagged top riser for 2025, alongside newer entries like Rynlee and Ailanny. We don’t have Klarity’s exact prior-year rank confirmed from a fetched source, so we’re reporting the “top riser” designation itself rather than inventing a spot-count — a smaller, honest claim beats a bigger, unverified one.
Source: AARP, “Most Popular Baby Names of 2025”.
The Long Fade of the Classics: Michael and Jennifer in 2025
Two names that once defined entire generations of American children are still on the board in 2025 — just nowhere near the top. Michael, a name that anchored the boys’ Top 10 for decades, now ranks #21. Jennifer, a name once so common it needed no introduction, has fallen to #586 among girls. Neither name has vanished — plenty of babies are still named Michael and Jennifer every year — but the numbers make the generational handoff concrete: these are names your grandparents’ generation carried into every classroom, and today’s parents mostly aren’t reaching for them.
Source: AARP, “Most Popular Baby Names of 2025”.
America’s Naming Diversity Has More Than Tripled
Step back from individual names and a bigger structural story shows up in SSA’s own numbers: American parents are spreading their choices across a much wider field of names than they used to. In 2025, the Top 10 boys’ names accounted for just 7.4% of all boys born, and the Top 10 girls’ names for just 6.4% of all girls. Fifty years earlier, those same Top 10 lists captured 25.6% of boys and 16.5% of girls — meaning today’s “most popular name in America” is a title with dramatically less actual market share than it used to carry.
That’s the real story behind “no one agrees on baby names anymore” — it isn’t a feeling, it’s a measurable, multi-decade shift toward a much longer tail of names.
Source: AARP, “Most Popular Baby Names of 2025”, citing SSA’s own historical comparison.
The Names Fading Fastest in 2025
While the headlines chase the risers, the complete dataset surfaces the other half of the story — the established names quietly slipping. Among names still in the Top 250 in 2024, these fell hardest in a single year:
- Kimberly (#247 → #303) and Andrea (#185 → #235) — mid-century classics continuing their long, gentle glide down.
- Brianna (#181 → #222) and Adalyn (#219 → #260) — a 2000s favorite and a 2010s favorite both cooling off.
- On the boys’ side, Ayden (#213 → #257) and Xander (#215 → #259) — two of the decade’s trendier picks losing steam.
None of these are vanishing; they’re easing out of the spotlight on the same generational clock that moved Michael and Jennifer — just caught mid-motion. There’s a national backdrop, too: total U.S. births in our dataset slipped from about 3.34 million in 2024 to 3.32 million in 2025, so a name merely holding its rank is quietly outperforming the raw counts.
2025’s Most Perfectly Split Names
Here’s an angle only the full dataset can show: which names are given almost exactly evenly to boys and girls. We lined up every name shared by at least 900 children of each sex in 2025 and measured how close each landed to a true 50/50 split:
- Dakota — 1,035 girls and 1,074 boys, a near-perfect coin flip (49.1%).
- Tatum and Blake — both 48.9%, within a whisker of even.
- Shiloh (47.4%), Charlie (46.8%), and Rory (43.0%) round out the genuinely shared names.
If you want a name that reads as truly unisex — not “mostly a boys’ name that some girls also have” — this short list is the honest 2026 answer, straight from the birth certificates.
What These Baby Name Trends 2026 Mean If You’re Naming a Baby
- “Popular” means something different than it used to. The #1 girls’ name in America now accounts for a smaller share of babies than the #10 name did fifty years ago — so a name being widely used doesn’t mean you’ll meet three of them in every kindergarten class.
- Rankings can be closer than they look. Several of 2025’s biggest “movements” — Ava losing her Top 10 spot, Charlotte overtaking Emma — were decided by a few hundred births. Small trends, not landslides.
- A name can climb over a thousand spots in a year. Kasai’s jump from outside the Top 1,000 to #639 is a reminder that “obscure” and “about to be everywhere” can be the same name twelve months apart.
- Even iconic names fade on a generational clock. Michael and Jennifer haven’t disappeared, but their SSA ranks today (#21 and #586) show how completely a “safe, classic” choice can be recontextualized within a couple of decades.
If you want to dig into any individual name’s full history, the SSA’s own baby names tool is the canonical source (note: it may be temporarily unreachable from some networks). You can also browse related names in our baby name directory and gender-neutral baby names collection.
The Origin Map: Where America’s Names Really Come From
Here’s something the SSA will never tell you, because they don’t track it — but we do. Every name in our database is tagged by cultural origin, so we can join 145 years of birth data to those tags and watch entire naming traditions rise and fall. This is the part nobody else has.
The headline: America is quietly diversifying its naming roots. For decades, Hebrew names — the Noahs, Elijahs and Abigails of the biblical tradition — utterly dominated. They still lead, but their share of U.S. births has slid from 25.5% in 2000 to 19.3% in 2025. Greek names slipped too (11.7% → 9.6%), while Latin names proved remarkably durable near 12–13% — Olivia, Mia and Sophia are doing much of that work.
The real movement, though, is out at the edges:
- Hawaiian names are the breakout of the quarter-century — up nearly seven-fold in share (0.2% → 1.3%), on names like Kai, Nalani and Leilani.
- Arabic names more than doubled (1.7% → 3.8%) — Layla, Amir, Zara and Malik.
- Italian (0.8% → 2.0%) and Sanskrit (0.4% → 1.1%) names both surged, while Old English rode the vintage-revival wave (5.9% → 7.9%) — Everly and Harper among them.
- On the way down, the Celtic cluster: Irish (3.1% → 2.5%) and Welsh (2.2% → 1.3%) names, so hot in the 1990s, have cooled.
The pattern is unmistakable: American parents are reaching further around the globe than they used to. The melting pot is showing up right on the birth certificates.
What We Want Names to Mean Is Changing
Origins are only half the story. The other half is meaning — and this is where it gets fun, because we tag every name by what it signifies, too. Line those tags up against the birth data and you can watch American values shift, one baby at a time.
The biggest move is spiritual. Names meaning god or the divine — the Elijahs, Gabriels and Isaiahs — have fallen from 21.5% of births in 2000 to 17.8% in 2025. Names of royalty faded too (9.2% → 7.7%), along with grace and love.
What’s rising in their place says a lot about where the culture is heading:
- Light names nearly doubled their share (3.1% → 6.1%) — Luna, Aurora, Nova and Elena.
- Warrior meanings jumped (2.6% → 4.4%) — a generation naming for resilience and grit.
- Peace (1.1% → 2.0%) and flower (2.1% → 2.7%) names both climbed — Violet, Lily and Jasmine.
Put the two together and a portrait emerges: today’s parents are drifting away from inherited religious and hierarchical meanings toward light, nature, strength and calm. Less “chosen by scripture,” more “chosen for who we hope they’ll become.” And it’s exactly the kind of thing you can only see with the whole dataset — which, as it happens, we have.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most popular baby names of 2025?
Liam and Olivia topped the U.S. Social Security Administration’s 2025 national data, released May 8, 2026. Charlotte moved into the #2 spot for girls, overtaking Emma, and Eliana entered the girls’ Top 10 for the first time, replacing Ava.
What was the fastest-rising baby name in 2025?
Kasai was the fastest-rising boys’ name, climbing 1,108 rank spots to reach #639 — a jump from completely outside the Top 1,000 the year before. Klarity was SSA’s flagged top riser among girls’ names.
Are Michael and Jennifer still popular baby names?
Both names are still used, but far less than at their peak: Michael now ranks #21 among boys and Jennifer #586 among girls in the 2025 SSA data, reflecting their generational fade from the Top 10 they once dominated.
Is baby naming more diverse than it used to be?
Yes, measurably so. In 2025 the Top 10 boys’ names made up just 7.4% of all boys born, and the Top 10 girls’ names just 6.4% of all girls born — compared to 25.6% and 16.5% fifty years earlier, according to SSA’s own historical comparison.
How is this baby name trends 2026 data actually calculated?
Every stat comes from the U.S. Social Security Administration’s complete national dataset — every name, 1880 through 2025 — loaded into More4Kids’ own baby-names database, where we computed the rankings, birth-count margins, rise-and-fall figures, and diversity share ourselves. We then cross-checked the headline numbers against AARP’s published 2025 list. Full methodology is documented above.
Cite or Share This Study
This study is built on the SSA’s complete national dataset, analyzed in our own database and cross-checked against published figures — which is what lets us go past the Top 10 to the tightest races, the fastest risers and fallers, and the most evenly-split names. If you reference any finding, chart, or number from this piece, please credit More4Kids and link back to this page. Reach us through more4kids.info.
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Meet Sophia Richards Sophia Richards is an early childhood educator, passionate writer, and the proud mom of three energetic kids. With a degree in Education and over a decade of hands-on classroom experience, Sophia bridges the gap between professional teaching strategies and everyday family life. At More4Kids, she translates complex child development concepts into practical, actionable parenting tips that families can use at home.
Whether she is sharing positive reinforcement techniques, educational crafts, or honest reflections on the chaos of raising three children under one roof, Sophia’s goal is to empower parents to foster resilience and joy in their kids. When she isn’t writing or lesson planning, you can find her organizing neighborhood scavenger hunts or trying out new kid-friendly recipes.
Areas of Expertise: Early Childhood Education, Positive Parenting, Sibling Dynamics, Educational Play, Family Wellness.
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