Thanks to all of you for entering the Nameberry Mother’s Day Contest. Now that the SSA lists are in, we are able to declare the winners–which turned out to be more complicated than we expected. Largely due to Emma jumping into first place–and not Isabella, which most of you predicted– and the surprise appearance of wild-card Chloe at #10, no one was able to come up with a perfect list.
In fact, very few of you made the Emma- Jacob combo your top picks. The two entrants who did (and are coincidentally evidence of the wide range of the nameberry world), and who also successfully predicted a large proportion of the other Top 20 names are:
CATHERINE, a 19-year-old Pennsylvania college student already obsessed with names (her current favorites are Rufus, Johannes, Daphne, Lucy and Alice), and
DIANE, a volunteer doula living in Florida, who is a ’self-proclaimed name nerd’ and grandmother to boys named Jordan and Ian.
The winners get an advance copy of our brand-new book, Beyond Ava & Aiden, along with signed copies of three other name guides. Runners-up are the five perceptive people who picked 18 of the 20 top names (though not necessarily in the proper order)–their names will be posted shortly.
Wondering what the most common sticking points were? On the girls’ list, it was including Addison, Hannah, Madeline, Lily, and/or Grace; and for the boys, Noah, Andrew, and triplets Aiden, Brayden, and Jayden.
But if we want to affirm our baby naming acumen: in last week’s poll, 71% correctly predicted that Jacob would stay on top and Emily would not.
And in the unlikely event that you somehow missed the official list, here are the Top Ten for each sex:
GIRLS:
EMMA
ISABELLA
EMILY
MADISON
AVA
OLIVIA
SOPHIA
ABIGAIL
ELIZABETH
CHLOE
BOYS
JACOB
MICHAEL
ETHAN
JOSHUA
DANIEL
ALEXANDER
ANTHONY
WILLIAM
CHRISTOPHER
MATTHEW
Tags: contest winner, Emma top girls' name, Jacob top boys' name, nameberry contest, Social Security list of top baby names, top boys' names, top girls' names
This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 12:34 am and is filed under baby name popularity, baby names of 2008, best baby names, boys' names, celebrity names, girls' names, name style . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.



May 11th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Congrats to Catherine and Diane – what fabulous proof that names are life-long obsession.