About Name Count Box

Name Count Box answers one question well: how popular is a name? Every page is built from public records, not opinions, so you can see exactly how a name has been used and decide for yourself.

Where the numbers come from

• Baby counts and ranks come from the Social Security Administration's baby name files: every first name given to at least 5 US babies of one sex in a year, 1880 to 2025. The files cover 105,953 different names; we publish a page for the 13,226 given to at least 1,000 babies in total or 300 in the last 10 years.
• State figures come from the SSA's state files and use 2021 to 2025, so small states have enough babies to compare.
• Ranks are counted separately for boys and girls, as the SSA does. Names with the same number of babies share a rank.
• Counts before about 1937 are low, because many people born then never applied for a Social Security card. Names are cut at 15 letters, and accents and hyphens are removed by the SSA.

Our estimates

• Living people and median age: we take the babies given a name each year and apply the share expected to survive to 2026, from US period life tables for males and females. It doesn't account for immigration or emigration, so treat it as a careful estimate.
• Spellings that sound alike: Social Security counts Aiden, Aidan and Ayden as three names. We group spellings by sound with our own rules, only within the same main sex, and rank each group against every other group. A few groupings may not match how your family says a name; tell us and we'll fix it.
• Chance a classmate shares the name: the chance that at least one of 24 other children born the same year has the name, using its share of all babies that year.

Spotted a mistake? Let us know.