Most Popular Baby Names: Boys

Lately, I've noticed a lot of people having babies with unusual names. Sure, trends in baby naming come and go - I haven't met a 'Gertrude' who's under 50 myself. Likewise, I've met more 'Mackenzie's who are under the age of 10 than all the other girl names put together. That got me wondering - just what are the popular names these days? Is this odd occurrence a national thing, or just something in the air in my area?

So I decided to do some poking around, and I've come up with a list of the 20 most popular names for each gender. Believe it or not, the contest for most popular name is very intense; with millions of children born in the US every year, the top name was only picked around 20,000 times (just 1%, respective to each gender), and the #20 name, a little more than half that. In total, all top 20 names make up just 13-16% (girls:boys) of those given to newborns.

This list is for boy names; click here for the girls' names. If you're looking for a common name, you've come to the right place. If you want something more rare or original, then you can cross any of these off your list. And, by the way, the stats that follow each name are for 2007 (because 2008 isn't finished yet), and include all the variant spellings (like Sarah / Sara).

20 - Nicholas: 14,132

19 - John: 14,185

18 - Jayden: 15,025

17 - Logan: 15,137

16 - Ryan: 15,494

15 - James: 15,708

14 - Noah: 16,373

13 - Joseph: 17,018

12 - David: 17,182

11 - Alexander: 17,869

10 - Andrew: 18,157

9 - Matthew: 18,420

8 - William: 18,595

7 - Anthony: 19,316

6 - Christopher: 19,782

5 - Daniel: 19,869

4 - Joshua: 20,254

3 - Ethan: 20,785

2 - Michael: 21,618

1 - Jacob: 23,886

Incidentally, Jacob has been the #1 name since 1999. The most popular name for the largest part of the last century, though, was Michael, which held the top slot from 1961 until 1998 (when it was dethroned by Jacob), and had 6 more years besides.

Source: United States Social Security Administration, applications for social security numbers for births.