Data Source & Methodology

The dataset

All name data on this site comes from the United States Social Security Administration's publicbaby names dataset, which is in the public domain. It is based on Social Security card applications for births in the United States and currently covers the years 1880–2025, nationally and per state.

• To protect privacy, SSA only includes name/sex combinations given toat least 5 babies in a given year and area. Rarer names exist, but never appear in the public data.
• The data reflects the sex recorded on the Social Security application and the exact spelling as filed — variants like Sophia and Sofia are counted separately.
• SSA releases a new year of data each spring; we update the site after each release.

How we compute things

• Ranks are per year and sex, by number of babies. Names with equal counts share a rank, matching how SSA presents its rankings.
• Popularity curves show a name's share of all same-sex births that year — not raw counts — so eras with bigger birth cohorts don't distort the picture.
• Trend labels compare today's rank with five years ago: a move of at least 10% (minimum 5 places) counts as rising or falling. "Comeback" means the name peaked 40+ years ago and has improved its rank three years in a row.
• Uniqueness scores (0–100) put a name's current births-per-baby frequency on a log scale, from chart-topper (0) to the edge of SSA's 5-baby reporting threshold (100).
• Style tags like "vintage" or "classic" are derived from the shape of each name's own popularity history; tags like "nature" or "biblical" come from curated word lists. They're browsing aids, not etymology claims.

Found something that looks off? The raw data is public — we encourage you to check us againstssa.gov.