Just like Oz, Nameberry has a Wizard: Our engineer and partner Hugh Hunter.  One of the wonderful things Hugh can do, besides creating the digital structure of the site and keeping it running, is to produce lists of names that meet certain statistical criteria: Names whose popularity peaked in 1937, for instance, or names never searched on Nameberry (hmmmmmm).

So when we recently asked Hugh if he could generate a list of names that had reentered the U.S. Top 1000 in 2011 — names that had been on the list before, dropped off, and now had reappeared — the answer was of course.  What we didn’t know was how interesting that list would be.

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Nameberry’s top girl names 2011 is our definitive look at which girls’ names attracted the most views on our site this year.

Think of it as a predictor for which names parents will choose for their baby girls in the future, rather than what they named their daughters last year.

Once again, Charlotte is Nameberry’s #1 girls’ name, but Seraphina, jump-started by the daughter of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck, has moved into second place above big sister’s name Violet.

New entries in the girls’ Top 10 are Scarlett and Lila, replacing Elizabeth and Eliza.

The Nameberry Top 10 rankings are very different from the national Social Security list, with not a single crossover on the girls’ list. In fact, for example, the nation’s seventh most popular name, Madison, is not even in Nameberry’s Top 100.

Tomorrow we’ll bring you the boys’ popularity list, which includes bigger news than on the girls’ list.  Plus this year, we’ve compiled a separate list of popular unisex names, which we’ll run on Thursday.  One note here: Unisex names Harper and Quinn were both very popular for girls, and so by some rights should be included high up on the girls’ top 100.

Be sure to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the list where we’re announcing a new contest: Can you guess which name was #101 on Nameberry in 2011 for both girls and boys?

Here, then, the Nameberry top girl names 2011.

Nameberry’s Top 100 Girls’ Names, 2011
up significantly over 2010

1. Charlotte
2. Seraphina
3. Amelia
4. Violet
5. Isla
6. Imogen
7. Adelaide
8. Alice
9. Scarlett
10. Lila

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You may know Nameberry’s most popular girls’ names 2011: from Top 3 Charlotte, Violet, and Amelia down to Molly, Maya, and Mary.

You may even know our hottest girls’ names 2011, which include such celebrity-influenced picks as Pippa and Mila.

But we’ve got a quieter, less obvious, but potentially more interesting list for you: those girls’ names that don’t make the Top 100 but that are attracting a dramatic rise in interest this summer over last.

Some of the names here bear a relationship to those on the most popular list: Aveline instead of Adeline, for instance, or Indigo rather than Scarlett, or Clover as opposed to Ivy or Poppy. While not all of these names are destined for future popularity, the baby namer in search of a name that will feel as fresh in ten years as it does today should take heed.

Our list of secretly popular girls’ names 2011 (look for the boys’ list next week):

Agatha
Anais
Annabelle
Arden
Aria

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