Wallyworld

Having a baby? We are too. Our second. A girl this time. My wife's been driving me crazy all hours of the day and night with baby names - "What about Estelle?" or "What about Leopoldine?" Leopoldine, incidentally, was the name of Victor Hugo's (he of Les Miserables) daughter who was swept away and drowned in a river tidal bore in the Seine at Normandy.

You want to know what everyone else is calling their baby? Interesting how popular names come and go. When I was a kid the class was full of Davids, Peters, Andrews and Johns. The girls were called Christine, Margaret and Julie. Nobody had a hippie-sounding name (like Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily). Although we did have some Yugoslav kids with unusual names like Mirko and Nadia and Visna. Now the trend seems to be back towards classic English names like Emma, Sarah and Emily. And Mathew, Jack and Nicholas. Although I note the top three boys names sound like movie stars or rock stars - Aiden, Jacob and Ethan. Anyway...good luck in finding your baby name. We seem to have picked Eleonor - or at least my three year old son has.

Oh yeah...The American Social Security Administration lists these baby names as the Top 10 Baby Names for last year.

Top 10 Names for 2006
Boys names
1 Jacob
2 Michael
3 Joshua
4 Ethan
5 Matthew
6 Daniel
7 Christopher
8 Andrew
9 Anthony
10 William

Girls Names
1 Emily
2 Emma
3 Madison
4 Isabella
5 Ava
6 Abigail
7 Olivia
8 Hannah
9 Sophia
10 Samantha

That list is somewhat different to the Top 100 I have below. But you'll see they share a taste in classic, somewhat old-fashioned names. If you go to the SSA Site you can do a Search to see how the popularity of a name has changed over the years (in The States only). Fascinating. BTW do you reckon anyone in the world would name their child Tinkerbell? Just wondering.

Girl Names
1 Emma
2 Madison
3 Ava
4 Emily
5 Isabella
6 Kaitlyn
7 Sophia
8 Olivia
9 Abigail
10 Hailey
11 Hannah
12 Sarah
13 Madeline
14 Lily
15 Ella
16 Alyssa
17 Riley
18 Chloe
19 Lauren
20 Grace
21 Kaylee
22 Samantha
23 Brianna
24 Mia
25 Alexis
26 Addison
27 Mackenzie
28 Natalie
29 Taylor
30 Zoe
31 Sydney
32 Anna
33 Elizabeth
34 Isabelle
35 Avery
36 Maya
37 Savannah
38 Makayla
39 Kayla
40 Julia
41 Megan
42 Morgan
43 Jasmine
44 Katherine
45 Ashley
46 Allison
47 Kylie
48 Arianna
49 Jordan
50 Keira
51 Gabriella
52 Rachel
53 Peyton
54 Brooklyn
55 Brooke
56 Victoria
57 Claire
58 Abby
59 Audrey
60 Rebecca
61 Katie
62 Alexandra
63 Sophie
64 Camryn
65 Kate
66 Amelia
67 Paige
68 Caroline
69 Leah
70 Aubrey
71 Lillian
72 Gabrielle
73 Jessica
74 Ashlyn
75 Charlotte
76 Jayden
77 Kennedy
78 Jenna
79 Gracie
80 Alexa
81 Kendall
82 Molly
83 Lucy
84 Ellie
85 Trinity
86 Faith
87 Mckenna
88 Amanda
89 Nevaeh
90 Nicole
91 Gianna
92 Maggie
93 Destiny
94 Jada
95 Angelina
96 Erin
97 Marissa
98 Juliana
99 Bailey
100 Layla

Boy Names
1 Aiden
2 Jacob
3 Ethan
4 Ryan
5 Matthew
6 Jack
7 Noah
8 Nicholas
9 Joshua
10 Logan
11 Andrew
12 Michael
13 Caden
14 Dylan
15 Tyler
16 Connor
17 Jackson
18 Caleb
19 Jayden
20 Alexander
21 Nathan
22 Brayden
23 Zachary
24 Benjamin
25 William
26 James
27 Daniel
28 Gavin
29 Evan
30 Luke
31 Joseph
32 Landon
33 Christopher
34 Mason
35 Cameron
36 Anthony
37 Owen
38 Gabriel
39 Austin
40 Lucas
41 Christian
42 John
43 Sean
44 Elijah
45 David
46 Samuel
47 Carter
48 Hunter
49 Brandon
50 Alex
51 Jordan
52 Liam
53 Thomas
54 Justin
55 Dominic
56 Ian
57 Jake
58 Colin
59 Hayden
60 Jonathan
61 Isaiah
62 Cole
63 Adam
64 Tristan
65 Isaac
66 Max
67 Kyle
68 Aaron
69 Nathaniel
70 Wyatt
71 Robert
72 Chase
73 Riley
74 Carson
75 Brady
76 Jason
77 Parker
78 Charlie
79 Devin
80 Cooper
81 Blake
82 Eric
83 Xavier
84 Sebastian
85 Brian
86 Henry
87 Seth
88 Steven
89 Brody
90 Bryce
91 Will
92 Brendan
93 Patrick
94 Sam
95 Julian
96 Drew
97 Miles
98 Kevin
99 Peyton
100 Ben