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Check Out How Popular Your Name is in the U.S.

By Abbie Bradfield Mulvihill

The Social Security Administration just released its Top 10 Popular Baby Names for 2007. Emily and Jacob are in 1st place. Sadly, Abigail is still in the top 10. My full name isn't Abigail, but since all of those Abigails are called Abby (or Abbie or Abbi or Abbey or...well, you get the point), it might as well be.

For many years, I was the only Abbie (of any spelling) I'd ever met. Then in high school I met another one. Then around 30 I met a third. Then, ten years ago, Abigail hit the top 20 and now I can't go anywhere without a mom yelling, "Abby!" Since I'd spent so many years not hearing my name (except when my mom was yelling at me...), I can't help but jump every time some Abby does something wrong. (I'd like to add that they do something wrong a lot. So, to be on the safe side, you'll probably want to choose another name for that cute cuddly baby).

That brings me to what I was actually going to write about. The Social Security Popular Names page is pretty fun. You can:

• Check popular baby names back to 1880 (That might be helpful for that novel you're writing.).
• Check to see how popular a specific name was (where it ranked in the top 1000) for each year since 1880.
• Get the entire list of 1000 most popular names for any given decade. For example, did you know that Admiral and Anner were the 1000th most popular name in the 1890s? They were actually beaten out by Egbert and Mabell.
• Check back one week from today to get access to the "Top 5 Names by State."

Even though Abbie has become ultra popular, my full name has not. In fact, I'm more unique than Eura, Anner, Mabell, Paralee, Ebba, Astrid, Huldah, and oh so many more charming names. In fact, my full name has never appeared in the top 1000 for the past 128 years. I'll bet it's never made the top 1000...ever.

In case you're wondering - no, it's not Rumpelstiltskin.

Full post as published by AbsTracked on May 12, 2008 (boomark / email).