How many babies were given your name each year since 1880?

Type any name to see how many U.S. babies were given it each year since 1880, for girls or boys. Emma, shown first, went from 2,003 girls in 1880 down to 414 in 1976, then back up to a peak of 22,719 in 2003; in 2025 it was 12,754. The counts come from Social Security card applications, so the early years undercount everyone. A year with fewer than 5 babies of a name shows as 0, because Social Security leaves those names out for privacy.

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Each point is the number of U.S. babies given a name in one year, from Social Security card applications. Type any name to see its line, for girls or boys. These are counts, not shares, and far more babies are born today than in 1880, so a count can grow just because the country did.

Questions to discuss

  1. Look up your own name or a friend's. When was it most popular, and what might explain that?
  2. Why are counts from the 1880s lower than counts today, even for names that were very popular then?
  3. How could you change these counts to fairly compare a name's popularity in 1900 with today?

Source and date

Source
U.S. Social Security Administration, Baby Names from Social Security Card Applications (national data)
License
Public domain (U.S. government work)
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “How many babies were given your name each year since 1880?” Chart. Data: U.S. Social Security Administration, Baby Names from Social Security Card Applications (national data), https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/limits.html (data as of December 31, 2025). https://chart.ly/charts/baby-name-popularity (accessed October 15, 2026).

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The data

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The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly.

This table shows the name the chart opens with. For a name you look up, open “The numbers for …” under the chart.

Year Babies given the name
1880 2,003
1881 2,034
1882 2,303
1883 2,367
1884 2,587
1885 2,728
1886 2,764
1887 2,647
1888 3,087
1889 2,884
1890 2,980
1891 2,884
1892 3,128
1893 2,968
1894 2,937
1895 2,952
1896 2,872
1897 2,698
1898 2,788
1899 2,445
1900 3,095
1901 2,374
1902 2,514
1903 2,308
1904 2,312
1905 2,298
1906 2,224
1907 2,356
1908 2,357
1909 2,338
1910 2,607
1911 2,616
1912 3,357
1913 3,474
1914 3,972
1915 5,044
1916 5,217
1917 5,121
1918 5,324
1919 5,087
1920 5,238
1921 5,072
1922 5,013
1923 4,977
1924 4,897
1925 4,714
1926 4,480
1927 4,327
1928 4,017
1929 3,803
1930 3,555
1931 3,307
1932 3,330
1933 3,152
1934 2,940
1935 2,802
1936 2,831
1937 2,750
1938 2,670
1939 2,685
1940 2,606
1941 2,546
1942 2,606
1943 2,422
1944 2,247
1945 2,052
1946 2,070
1947 2,141
1948 2,099
1949 1,999
1950 1,896
1951 1,731
1952 1,709
1953 1,590
1954 1,530
1955 1,460
1956 1,340
1957 1,217
1958 1,084
1959 1,056
1960 976
1961 892
1962 798
1963 724
1964 770
1965 640
1966 619
1967 564
1968 494
1969 516
1970 529
1971 474
1972 453
1973 419
1974 490
1975 477
1976 414
1977 479
1978 442
1979 488
1980 530
1981 534
1982 560
1983 551
1984 678
1985 947
1986 1,259
1987 1,589
1988 1,795
1989 1,938
1990 2,420
1991 2,595
1992 3,212
1993 4,108
1994 4,765
1995 5,050
1996 6,151
1997 7,749
1998 10,451
1999 11,751
2000 12,560
2001 13,327
2002 16,558
2003 22,719
2004 21,625
2005 20,362
2006 19,133
2007 18,390
2008 18,830
2009 17,910
2010 17,366
2011 18,825
2012 20,976
2013 20,973
2014 20,970
2015 20,487
2016 19,550
2017 19,873
2018 18,824
2019 17,226
2020 15,723
2021 15,549
2022 14,512
2023 13,590
2024 13,524
2025 12,754

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