The 2025 Baby Names

The SSA’s annual rankings are in. America’s most popular names offer a snapshot of cultural taste, celebrity influence, and generational naming patterns — updated for 2025.

These names have grown five times faster this decade than the decade before. Not viral moments — sustained momentum. The data shows which names are genuinely reshaping the playground.

Bertha, Mildred, Elmer, Gertrude — once dominant names that have gone officially dormant. Each one marks a cultural era that closed. The SSA confirms some names don’t come back.

Hazel, Theodore, Eleanor, Walter — names that peaked in the 1940s and ‘50s are quietly returning to delivery rooms. Names become fashionable again roughly 80 years after their peak. These are on the schedule.

Some names climbed dozens of spots in the 2025 rankings; others fell off a cliff. Year-over-year rank changes reveal which names are riding cultural waves — and which are quietly leaving the mainstream.

Every name in the SSA archive since 1880 has a story: a peak era, a cultural moment, a decline curve. Search any name to generate a dossier — whether it belongs to a newborn, a grandparent, or nobody at all.