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Should I choose a popular baby name?

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One of the most common places to start looking for a baby name is a list of most popular names, such as the one at the U.S. Social Security website,

These lists will give you a fairly accurate portrayal of what parents in the United States are naming their babies, although it is noted that each unique spelling of a name counts as a different name.

You can see compiled lists from previous years, by sex and state or from across the country. For example, in 2003, the Top 10 most popular boy and girl names in the country were:
1. Jacob 1. Emily
2. Michael 2. Emma
3. Joshua 3. Madison
4. Matthew 4. Hannah
5. Andrew 5. Olivia
6. Joseph 6. Abigail
7. Ethan 7. Alexis
8. Daniel 8. Ashley
9. Christopher 9. Elizabeth
10. Anthony 10. Samantha

For comparison, here is 1999's US Top 10:
1. Jacob 1. Emily
2. Michael 2. Hannah
3. Matthew 3. Alexis
4. Joshua 4. Samantha
5. Christopher 5. Sarah
6. Nicholas 6. Ashley
7. Andrew 7. Madison
8. Joseph 8. Taylor
9. Daniel 9. Jessica
10. Tyler 10. Elizabeth

Overall, the names really didn't change much over that five year span of time. All of the boy names popular in 1999 were still popular in 2003, only in a slightly different order. For girls, the same is true, except the names, Sarah, Taylor and Jessica have been replaced with Emma, Olivia and Abigail.

On the Social Security website, you can also type in a specific name and see where it ranks now and track its popularity over time. For example, when you type in "Ella" you see that in 1990, it was the 864 most popular girls name out of 1000. In 1995, it was number 688, in 2000, it was 268 and in 2003 it was number 44. Therefore, if you wanted something a little different for your daughter, Ella may not be as unique as it was 10 years ago and you may want to keep that in mind.

Popular child naming trends tend to be cyclical. For example, names that were popular in the early part of the 1900's are becoming more popular again. That may explain why there are more and more Emma, Ella, Olivia and Abigail's around than were heard of in previous decades. If that trend holds, you may soon see a boom of Barbara, Linda, Carol, Joan, Ronald, Donald and Thomas's in nurseries across the country.

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