Leaps and Bounds (and Drops)

[ellenelle]

Having glanced over the new SSA list, I admit it was with some horror that I realized my favorite girl's name, Cora, jumped from #276 to #204 in one year! Noo! I'm still in love, but curses all the same...

Doing some more digging (mostly through girls names right now), it's fascinating what has jumped up really quickly and what seems to have slipped. Sure there are plenty of the trendy spellings complicating and clotting up the list. But here were some surprises to me.
- Vera jumped from #673 to #512.
- Probably thanks to the famous chanteuse, Adele catapulted 282 slots to be #627.
- Adelaide has risen from #568 to #407 between 2009 and 2011.
- Sloane, Willow, and Eloise each jumped 80 slots this year to rank at #511, #202, and #449 respectively (and note: Eloise was only at #913 in 2009!!).
- Following the other plant names, Dahlia moved up over 100 points to be #538 and Rosemary up 60 places to take #654.
- Felicity zoomed 99 places up the list to #666.
- I only just noticed that Annabelle is about to brush the top 100, but if you add in all the other spellings (the SSA lists Annabelle, Annabel, Anabel, Anabelle, Annabell plus Anabella and Annabella) then it's definitely much higher than that.
- Maeve, a NB fave, has actually dropped back down to its 2009 rank (from #535 to #590).
- Curiously (to me anyway), the spelling Lyla is significantly higher in rank than Lila.

I mean, I guess I'm not shocked--I knew these names were rising, but those are big jumps! Anyone else seen anything that caught them by surprise, too?

[holbs]

Oh wow, very interesting, thanks for sharing. Rosemary moving up really surprises me.

[goodhope]

I was surprised to see Geraldine re-enter the top 1000 for the first time since 1990 (even then it only ranked for 3 years, from '88 to '90--it essentially dropped off the list in the 70s). Amos and Harvey are also back. Could this be the start of a revival? I hope so. I think all three are cute in a clunky way.

[pansy]

Surprised about:
- Mason being #2 for boys. The name's just not very popular in my area (haven't run into any babies or small children with it), so I was surprised to see that it's ranked #2 nationally.
- Juniper and Temperance being in the Top 1000. While I love both names (Temperance is one of our top names for a girl), I didn't ever think that they'd crack the Top 1000.

Disappointed about:
-Bentley being in the Top 1000...for girls. Ugh.

Happy about:
-Rowan dropping in ranking for girls. This is our top boy's name and I was worried it was going to be taken over by the girls, but it's been steadily declining for girls over the past four years (while steadily climbing for boys), so I think we're safe.

[frustratedauthor]

I was pretty excited to see Juniper and Hattie enter the Top 1000. And I was pleasantly surprised to see Avery jump a few spots to 201 for boys and was pleased to see both Elliot and Elliott rise for boys. Also suprised to see my dad's name, Harvey, as 862.

[isabel_r]

can anybody post the new namelist? It would be a huge help

[jennipea382]

Wow, those are some HUGE leaps!

I knew Elliot/Elliott was going to jump. I've been seeing it on so many lists lately, and I already know of one. It was interesting that Elliot jumped a bit more than Elliott. They were only a few spots apart in 2010. Now the gap seems to be getting bigger. I still like Elliott more :-P

I also knew Aria was going to jump. It has a similar feel to a lot of popular names. Oh, and Declan. That's been popping up on EVERYONE'S list but mine, haha.

According to the SSA, the biggest jumpers in the top 500 were Brantley (boy - jumped 416 slots to #320) and Briella (girl - jumped 394 spots to #497). I wasn't surprised at all with Briella jumping so much, but Brantley shocked me. TBH I think it's an ugly name (sorry). Some other big jumpers were:
Boys
-Iker (267 spots to #379)
-Maximiliano (173 spots to #289)
-Zaiden (blech. 131 spots to #489)
-Kamden (why the K?! 109 spots to #448).

Girls:
-Angelique (247 spots to #380).
-Aria (196 spots to #157)
-Mila (190 spots to #174)
-Elsie (165 spots to #480)

As for the fallers, I was a little surprised. I noticed a lot of Braden variations dropping (and similar names - some of the biggest droppers include Jaydon, Brenden, Braiden, Braeden, Brayan and of course Braden). I wasn't totally surprised at the girl fallers. A lot of them have famous connections (Miley, Kimora, Kendra, etc). Jayden dropped a lot for girls, 80 spots to #292. Yay! I also noticed the alternative spellings of Madison are falling.

A lot of my favorite names have gone up. Not too much at the moment (for most, Elliot/Elliott will definitely keep climbing before I have a baby). But I'm more interested to see what my state's list is like. We tend to steer away from the trendy names (Jayden and Nevaeh are way further down the list compared to the national list) and seem to be a little ahead of the trends sometimes. For example, I believe our #1 boy name last year was Mason, and now it's #2 nationally. I want to see if my favorite names are getting popular here because this is most likely where my kids will grow up, so their name popularity in MN is a little more important than nationally. I'm just hoping my favorite names stay out of the top 20 or so!

[jennipea382]

Here are the links by the way:

SSA 2011 list: http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/popularnames.cgi

Change in popularity: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/b...ankchange.html

[saranel]

Oi. Our Felicity is due this July so her name was the first I looked up. 99 spaces in one year. Ridiculous. Especially after it was declining relatively steadily.

[conley]

Has anyone happened to see Louisa in the top 1000? I glanced through the list and didn't see it - but I'm a little surprised. It's my favorite name and I'd love to know where it ranks.

Thank you