The Significance of Your Baby’s Name

For Liam it was the ninth straight year and Olivia’s seventh as the most popular baby names in the United States:

When parents apply for their baby’s new Social Security card, the Social Security Administration (SSA) records the names. During 2025, 20,818 selected Liam and 13,544, Olivia. Meanwhile, among the girls, popularity surged for Ailany (from #101 to #14) and Sienna (#139 to #94). With boys, it was Eithan (#227 to #97) and Atlas (#101 to #75) that grabbed more parents.

Our question though is why, why do parents select certain names?

The Message From a Name

Referring to Washington D.C.’s new parents’ baby names, a consultant said they were “résumé-ready.” Classic, the names in the boys’ top 10 included Charles and John while conservative names like Francis, Helen, Ann, and Rose were more popular in D.C. than elsewhere.

Curious about what names tell us, The Economist used AI to analyze 143 years of nearly 400 million baby names in the U.S. and Great Britain. To see the connotations, they used word clusters. The results indicated that Olivia, Emma, and Charlotte evoke elegant associations while boys’ names like Liam and Noah tilt to power and strength. And a few parents (thinking of luxury?) selected Aston (#3723 in U.S. births) for their boy or girl.

You can see below that beauty and money are on the upswing. By contrast, names that connect to religion, love, and joy plunged in popularity:

Our Bottom Line: Signaling

While I am not sure about the academic rigor for some of the baby naming research, I do believe that many parents say something through their children’s names. A behavioral economist would say that they send a signal.

By signaling, we are using a very specific act to convey a much broader message. Politicians vote for the death penalty to show they are tough on crime. Someone shops at Annye’s Organics to demonstrate concern about the environment. And you name your little boy Stirling to display his monetary future.

Perhaps not what the parents of future entrepreneurs want to signal, John and Mary will always convey a classic conservatism:

My sources and more: While SSA was the logical starting place for today’s post, there is so much more. After the basic baby name list, we went to The Hill, The Economist, The Washington Post, and Yahoo. But best of all, I recommend returning to the Freakonomics podcast, “How Much Does Your Name Matter?”

I did want to add (and am not sure of the significance) that, with Texas, NJ, and NY selecting Emma as #1, sometimes red and blue states do agree.