The top ten changed little compared to 2006: the only newcomer was the name Elizabeth, which pushed Samantha from 10th place down to 12th. Boys are most often given biblical names — among them Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Matthew, and Daniel. In the list of most popular female names, following the leader are Isabella, Emma, Ava, and Madison. According to experts, the popularity of these names is due to their universality and lack of strongly expressed negative connotations.
Names of twins in the USA usually start with the same letter. The most popular pairs among boys became Jacob and Joshua, Matthew and Michael, Daniel and David. The most common combination for girls is Ella and Emma.
As noted in the report, the most unusual trend was a sharp increase in popularity of male names rhyming with the word 'maiden'. Among them: Jayden (18), Aiden (27), Aidan (54), Jaden (76), Brayden (529), Zayden (558), Hayden (820), Rayden (931) — a total of 34 names in the top thousand. Although many of them are different spellings of the same names, the agency announced that it opposes legislative attempts to introduce standard spelling.
Among girls, names related to religious or philosophical concepts are in fashion. The name Nevaeh (an anagram of the word heaven) rose to 31st place, while the variant Neveah took 891st place, and the name Heaven itself took 291st. Among other similar female names are Destiny, Trinity, Serenity, Miracle, Charity, and Essence. Among male names, only Sincere and Messiah can be included in this group.
As Lenta.ru notes, the statistics of the most popular names in the USA have been published by the Social Security Administration online since 1997. As of today, the organization's website provides statistical data from 1880.