What Are Your Favorite Baby Names?

When I was pregnant with Anton, we didn’t know if we were having a boy or girl, so we brainstormed names for both. Our top girls’ names were…

Jane
Margot
Penelope (Penny)
Louisa (Lulu)
Sabine

I also really love the name Anna, but it’s a tongue twister to say “Joanna and Anna.”

It’s funny how you rarely hear the names that were popular when we were growing up — Matt, Josh, Kristen, Jennifer. If my friend were like, “Here’s my new baby, Kevin,” I would do a double take. These days, though, the more offbeat names don’t surprise me at all. We know sweet boys named Ocean, River and Lion. And girls named Persephone, Summer and Charlie.

What baby names do you love? Does it matter to you if they’re popular? So far, according to USA Today and Nameberry, the most popular baby names in 2019 are:

Girls:
Posie
Isla
Olivia
Aurora
Maeve
Cora
Amara
Ada
Amelia
Charlotte

Boys:
Milo
Jasper
Atticus
Theodore
Asher
Silas
Jack
Finn
Henry
Felix

What about you? What names do you love? If you’re expecting, have you made a name decision or are you waiting to meet the baby?

P.S. What to register for your baby, and how did you know you were ready for a baby? Also, a funny parenting story.

(Photo by Hana Asbrink.)

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Anna

June 29, 2021 8:56am 8:56 am

My name is Anna Luisa and as a huge fan of CoJ and Joanna herself I loved to read this so much!! Hah!

Jen

January 4, 2021 12:12am 12:12 am

Love this post! Re-reading it in 2021 as I near my due date for baby girl #2. We are really struggling to land on a name –
at the moment our short list is Eliza and Chloe.

We have a 2.5 year old named Ava. We settled on her name years before we had her and nearly got cold feet when we found out how popular it had become in recent years. We are feeling a little reluctant about the name Chloe for the same reason, and really aren’t loving the idea of having two girls with top 10 baby names (we’re in Australia). Then again, Eliza will probably be pretty popular soon too with Hamilton!

Would be interested in others’ thoughts on these two names, or other names that go well with Ava.

December 16, 2020 12:19pm 12:19 pm

Rereading this in December 2020! We find out the sex of our baby tomorrow at our 20 week scan and I am convinced it’s a boy and am struggling!

Emily

October 5, 2020 5:44pm 5:44 pm

Mine are Graham Thomas (8), Lila Elise (6), Marian Klara (4), and Fay Violet (1) ❤️

Annie Green

Reply to Emily

October 8, 2021 1:25pm 1:25 pm

Violet. My grandmother’s name. I love it.

Ashley

October 5, 2020 4:57pm 4:57 pm

Oh, the name game.

My favorite.. I have a long list of names I love, but my husband is not always on the same page. I have a mix of names I like that range from totally unique to old fashioned. I am currently pregnant and we have yet to find out sex. We definitely have one front runner name for each sex at this point. When we were pregnant with our son we had front runner names but didn’t decide 100% until he was born and we saw him. He is a true Everett!

Girls: Lennon, Lincoln (both my husband nixed), Levi, Vada (My Girl!), Meyer, Margot, Miller, Marisol, Primrose, Posey, Alba, Emory, Ethyl, Sutton…

Boys: Caddis (Caddy for short), Morris, Levi, Hendrick, Hatch, Oswald, Cullen, Edmund, Ellis, Hugh, Vince…

Catherine

March 30, 2020 4:55pm 4:55 pm

My children are Ronan (12), Isla (10), Stellan (8) and Wolf (6). I’ve not met another Stellan in person. Naming my children was so much fun and as soon as we landed on their names it clicked immediately. And happily they all love their names.

Caitlin

August 20, 2019 5:48pm 5:48 pm

We just ditched the contraception (!) but have always had a list of names we’ve liked.

Sylvie and Margot for a girl
Clive for a boy

Middle names are undecided but we love the idea, as frequent travelers, of giving the baby a middle name from places around the world we’ve loved.

August 7, 2019 1:38pm 1:38 pm

2 Chronicles 14-16 :)

Emilie

June 3, 2019 8:27am 8:27 am

My partner’s friends that have kids refused to talk about baby names with anyone, not even close friends. They didn’t want to hear anything negative or critical from anyone concerning what they wanted to name the child, after the baby comes people tend to back off more. I guess culturally in France, where my partner is from, people tend to be over critical of anything to do with baby stuff, including names, and they wanted nothing to do with it, which is smart. So far there are only 2 babies in his group or friends, 2 girls, Anastassia and Clessie. Neither of them are common at all in France, hahaha. My side is all in the States, and it’s the typical names you see all over the place, lol. I don’t know if we’ll have any kids, but if we do, I tend to gravitate towards Gaelic, which is understandable, coming from the States, they’re popular there for the most part, but not average Gaelic/Celtic names, more stuff like Duncan and Rhys and Siobhan, I guess stuff more popular in the UK and Ireland. But my partner is French, and he really only likes French names. So I told him some I liked, and he was like, “no way, only people over 70 have those names!” hahahahhahaha, though they’re popular French names in the States. So I don’t know what we’d do. We lived in Korea for quite a few years, and thought about Korean names, though I don’t know how well they’d work in France, especially with how they spell things, lol

Diane Smelser

May 25, 2019 4:41am 4:41 am

I really like “Asa.” I think it is biblical but I don’t know where you find it. Every Asa I have known has been glorious!

Joanna

May 6, 2019 4:40pm 4:40 pm

I’m a Joanna and named my daughter Anna! It is 100% a tongue twister, you’re absolutely right. But having “Ann” in all of the female names is a family tradition, and we wanted her to get to be part of the club. I also have always questioned why it is normalized to name boys after their fathers, but not the same with girls and their mothers. When people ask why we chose her name, I love channeling my inner Lorelai Gilmore and telling them that she is named after her mama. :)

Jessica

Reply to Joanna

May 23, 2019 5:48pm 5:48 pm

My mother is named after her mother, and her eldest brother was named after their father. Growing up, it seemed, to me, totally normal to have a few children and name a boy and girl after their parents. Later, my grandmother told me that she named my mother after a nick-name that her best friend had taken to calling her: my grandmother was Mary Katherine, and her best friend called her Mary Kay; or just Kay. That is what she passed on to my mother, naming her Mary Kay.

Kathy

May 6, 2019 3:31pm 3:31 pm

I am due in June with a baby boy and we like the name Theodore, and plan to call him Theo. But, this Nameberry ranking has made me so so nervous that he will be one of multiple Theos in his class! Does anyone have any evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that Theodore will not be as popular as Nameberry is predicting??

Sonja

Reply to Kathy

May 8, 2019 6:41pm 6:41 pm

I only know one and there are LOTS of babies and little kids in our lives between school, friends, lots of sisters with baby boys, etc. Also, my husband is a Sam and he said it has never bothered him to be one of other Sams. He once lived with two others and they still get together. Now I just say “My Sam” and their girlfriends/wives do the same. Ha!

Kristian

Reply to Kathy

May 9, 2019 10:15am 10:15 am

This is anecdotal, but as a teacher, I can say I’ve only had students with the same name ONCE out of 15 classes of students. Even though names are popular, there is just flat out more variety. So, what is most popular might only be 1% or less of the names, where it used to be 5% or so. You don’t seem to get two or three Tiffanys, Jennifers, Joshs the way you did when we were kids. So, a Theo might grow up and meet and know other Theos, but…. I doubt there will be multiples in the same class or even the same grade.

Tanya

Reply to Kathy

May 24, 2019 1:13pm 1:13 pm

We know at least 3 littles named Theo and I hear the name all over the place. But, if you like it you like it! And as someone who was NOT named Tiffany or Ashley or Megan in the 1980s there were times in my childhood when I wished I had a more common name that people could pronounce. Best wishes to you!

Catherine

Reply to Kathy

March 30, 2020 4:31pm 4:31 pm

My Daughter’s name is Isla (she’s ten though, so I’m not sure how many toddler Isla’s are out there) and while it is a popular name, she ‘s the only Isla in her school and was the only Isla in a school of over 800 kids last year. So… I never really trust those that much.

Elisha Etheredge

May 3, 2019 8:59am 8:59 am

We just had a little girl (8weeks), Lucy Isabella. I always loved the name Lucy as she was a dear childhood friend. And Isabella was my Nan’s middle name. She suits it already I think!

Nora

May 3, 2019 8:29am 8:29 am

Our son is named Constantin Wilfried August. When he was born there were no Constantins around and we loved the strength of the name. Now every second little boy on the playground is named Constantin! He calls himself Tin though and I actually really love it. Our daughter was born a few months ago and it was so so soooo much harder to find a name for her that we both love – we ended up naming her Cleo Silvia Hermine.

Carly

May 1, 2019 11:42pm 11:42 pm

I’m so happy you did another baby name post! We are due in October and so far, haven’t agreed on any names that we both like! Hopefully this will give us some inspiration :)

Megan

May 1, 2019 4:51pm 4:51 pm

Just before my fiance and I got engaged we were out walking. I mentioned that I had thought of a name earlier that I love for our future kid and asked him to guess. He did. And he was right. And then I cried in a public park ’cause hey true love in cool and stuff.

Yelena

May 1, 2019 2:53pm 2:53 pm

I have a 4 year old girl names Remi and a new baby boy named Arlo. People think we’re big Pixar fans because the rat in Ratatouille was named Remi (with a “y” though) and the dinosaur in the Good Dinosaur was called Arlo, but we just wanted easy to say, easy to spell names and these did the trick.

If Arlo had been a girl, Este was at the top of my list.

Yelena

May 1, 2019 2:49pm 2:49 pm

I have a little girl names Remi who is 4 and I just had a baby boy in February who is called Arlo. We wanted easy to spell, easy to say names. Remi has been able to spell her own name since she was 3, and she can spell her brother’s name too!

I’m done having kids but if Arlo had been a girl I would have named the baby Este.

Cora

May 1, 2019 9:14am 9:14 am

This is funny to me because I am a Cora, but when I was growing up the only Coras I ever met were elderly. As a result, I hated my name. Now I love it and love knowing there are lots of little Coras running around.

Nicole

April 30, 2019 12:31am 12:31 am

I have Frederick, Harriet and Ella and I’m pregnant now. We never find out the sex until the birth and I always have such a hard time with boy names! Girl names come easily! Getting some good ideas from these comments though.

Jessica

Reply to Nicole

May 2, 2019 6:18pm 6:18 pm

We just had number 4 two months ago and never find out what we are having either. And boy names have always been the hardest for us too!

Laura

April 28, 2019 10:04pm 10:04 pm

I wasn’t a fan to popularity names and wanted unique names to all their selves. I have fraternal twin girls Erika Noelle and Bridgette Marie. If I had a third child be it a boy or a girl I would name it Dakota (not sure of a middle name, maybe this one I would name it two or three middle names).

Samantha

April 28, 2019 3:55pm 3:55 pm

I’m a Sam, with two girls, Leni and Frankie. Leni, after my grandpa Leonard, and Frankie, short for Frances, my husband’s grandmother. But really, we are just a crew of girls with ‘boy’s names’. I always joke we could be the employees of some 1950s NY mechanics shop- yo Leni! Yo Frankie!

Caitlin

Reply to Samantha

May 13, 2019 10:01pm 10:01 pm

My daughter is Eleanor, and her nickname is Leni. I also call her “Leonard” for fun!

Batya

April 28, 2019 3:38pm 3:38 pm

The name Sofia is ever-so-popular at the moment, but we named our eldest daughter the Hebrew spelling and pronunciation Tsofia (Tzofia) which has the most beautiful meaning – Protector, guardian of the home.
My youngest daughter’s name is Ayelet and we call her Aya. I love that Aya isn’t very common in South Africa where we live but it is very universal and easy to remember.

Isabel Kallman

April 28, 2019 2:19pm 2:19 pm

This is how Nameberry calculates its TOP names list: “We calculate our popularity list based on which names attracted the most of the 11 million views of our name pages so far this year.”

I wonder how this will actually pan out with how people really select their baby’s name… which is tracked by the Social Security Administration. The list looks a lot different. Here is the most recent list from 2017: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/

Jessica

Reply to Isabel Kallman

May 2, 2019 6:20pm 6:20 pm

It’s always so different than what Nameberry says. I love looking at the most popular names by star in ssa. It’s fascinating to me to see how ethnicity and the part of the country you are in play such a big role in names.

Alison

April 28, 2019 2:52am 2:52 am

I love, love, love my children’s names. They both have two middle names which we enjoy as well – it allows us to accommodate family names and maintain that connection to their ancestors. My three year old son is Thatcher John Cooper and my 5 month old daughter is Emerson Kate McCall (we call her Emerson, Emmy, and Emmy Kate).

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