Baby names provide insight into the population’s culture during any given year. Some trends come and go in a single year, whereas others last for decades. Choosing a baby name is a deeply personal choice and parents create a unique association with a single name, yet that name may be present in hundreds of other families across the country, hinting at deeper trends across the U.S.
In addition to the timeless classics that never seem to leave our society, 2025 welcomes new trends in baby girl and baby boy names. Spokeo does a deep dive into the year’s most popular baby names by state and region using data from the Social Security Administration.
How is baby name data obtained?
In 1998, the Social Security Administration began publishing data on the most common first names for babies born in a given year. It was titled “Actuarial Note #139, Name Distributions in the Social Security Area, August 1997”. This was an expansion on the Report of Distribution of Surnames in the Social Security Number File, which occasionally published surnames from 1954 to 1984.
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The current publications go back to 1879, although many people born before 1937 never applied for Social Security cards and are thus not included. Data is pulled from the “First Name” field of the Social Security Card Application.
All data is public and can be accessed online. To dive deeper into how names relate to individuals and families across the U.S., try a people search to explore real-world name connections.
Top 10 boy and girl names in the United States
Nationally, trends have emerged in 2025 based on data from 2024. For over a decade, the most popular names averaged out across all states have been Liam and Noah for boys and Olivia and Emma for girls.
The top 10 boy and girl names for the United States in 2024 are:
Girl names:
- Olivia
- Emma
- Amelia
- Charlotte
- Mia
- Sophia
- Isabella
- Evelyn
- Ava
- Sofia
Boy names:
- Liam
- Noah
- Oliver
- Theodore
- James
- Henry
- Mateo
- Elijah
- Lucas
- William
State-by-state baby naming trends in 2025:
While many of the top 10 names from the country are present in the top 10 lists of each state, many states have unique names in the top positions. Moreover, specific regions can have trends that are not present in other areas of the country.
To aggregate the data of all baby names across the country, the SSA uses Social Security Card Applications based on state. All data is from a 100% sample of records up until March 2025.
Data qualifications and limitations:
There are a few key characteristics to note about the baby name data and the methodology for collecting it. The Social Security Administration’s main qualifications include:
- Names must have the year of birth, sex, and state of birth to qualify.
- Name data is only based on the 50 states. U.S. Territories name data exists separately.
- Name data is pulled from the “First Name” field, and hyphens are removed.
- Data is not edited.
- Different name spellings are not combined to represent a single name.
- In the case of a tie, names are ranked in alphabetical order.
- Names that appear for both sexes are ranked separately for each sex.
- Names that appear less than 5 times in any geographical area are excluded for privacy reasons.
Most popular boy names by state:
Across the United States, 2024 saw patterns in how baby boys were named. These trends will likely continue in some capacity into 2025. Four of the top five names ranked as #1 in various states. Interestingly, William, which was ranked in the #10 spot, was the most popular name for Missouri and Alabama.
Compared to girls’ names, boys’ names were much less diverse. Out of all 50 states, five names were the most common. Baby naming consultant Colleen Slagen attributes the trend to people being “less willing to get adventurous with boy names,” according to a report in TODAY Parents.
Geographical trends and outliers
As displayed in the infographic above, various regions across the United States have higher prevalences of certain names. In the Pacific Northwest region, for example, Oliver was the most common name for 2024. Across the mid-Atlantic, Liam took the first spot.
New Hampshire was an individual outlier, with Theodore being the most popular baby boy name. Missouri and Alabama were also outliers, with William being the go-to name.
Most popular girl names by state
Overall, trends in girls’ names were much more complex than boys’. Across the country, eight different names were the most popular among the states.
Geographical trends and outliers
Girl names had quite a few more outliers than boy names. For example, Wyoming’s most popular name was Emma. Despite Emma being the #2 name on 2024’s list, it was not the most popular in any other state. North Dakota was also an outlier, with Evelyn being the most common.
Across the country, various groupings appear. In the Mountain West region, specifically Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah, Olivia was the most common name. In the Northeast, Mia was the most popular in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, and Charlotte was the most common in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.
Unique naming trends to keep an eye on
Although baby names have remained quite consistent over the years, parents are diverging from the standard “safe” names that dominated the popular baby name list in 2024.
According to Namerology, unique and “Xtreme” spellings are on the rise. They often feature double vowels and names that start with X or Z.
Another trend is that classic girl names are no longer popular. Simple names like Mary, Ann, and Susan are being replaced by names like Calliope.
Looking forward
Although the SSA doesn’t release 2025 naming trends until 2026, many of the observations gleaned from 2024’s data will be applicable. Boy names will likely be predictable, girl names will remain creative, and specific geographical regions will continue to have the same top names. Moving forward, more exotic and unique names could become popular as parents look to diverge from the status quo.
This story was produced by Spokeo and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.