What does Meghan Markle have to do with American baby names? More than you might expect.
The annual results are in, and Emma and Liam again top the list of the most popular baby names in America.
But while these two names have been ruling the roost for several years running, there is a lot less consensus in American naming practices than the top-10 ranking would indicate, said Laura Wattenberg, who runs the website namerology.com and authored the book “The Baby Name Wizard: A Magical Method for Finding the Perfect Name for Your Baby” (Harmony, Revised Edition, 2013).
The fastest-rising name of the year, Wattenberg said, is actually Zhavia, which was not even in the top 2,000 before rising to become the 877th on the Social Security Administration (SSA) list, which is released each year in May. [10 Popular Baby Names and What They Mean]
“In some ways, [Zhavia] is more representative of what’s going on with American names than Emma is,” Wattenberg said.
Emma has been the most popular girl’s name in the United States since knocking Sophia from the top spot in 2015, according to SSA data. Likewise, Liam has also been a multiyear favorite for American parents. The name has exploded in popularity over the past decade, rising from 75th on the list in 2008 to sixth by 2012 and first in 2017.
Both Liam and Emma are what Wattenberg calls “raindrop names,” which are short names dominated by vowel sounds.
