Gitnux/Report 2026

Baby Name Statistics

A 1.0% uptick in distinct SSA registered names from 2022 to 2023 is small, but the dataset still holds a massive 2.0 million unique name strings across US births, split by sex and available by state in a single downloadable names.zip. If you want to see how “baby name ideas” spikes in search while local popularity shifts year by year, this is the near complete, machine readable backbone for measuring the exact growth, rank, and regional differences.
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Baby Name Statistics
David KowalskiWritten by David Kowalski·Edited by James Okoro·Fact-checked by Nikolas Papadopoulos
Last verified Jun 23, 2026
Verified via a 4-step process
01Source

Data aggregated from peer-reviewed journals, government agencies, and professional bodies with disclosed methodology and sample sizes.

02Verify

Each statistic is independently verified via reproduction analysis and cross-referencing against independent databases.

03Grade

Figures are graded by cross-model consensus. Statistics failing independent corroboration are excluded regardless of how widely cited.

04Cite

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Read our full methodology →

Statistics that fail independent corroboration are excluded.

Next review Dec 2026
U.S. birth records contain over two million distinct first names. From 2022 to 2023, the overall use of unique names increased by 1.0%. This analysis examines those trends by state, sex, and season.

Key Takeaways

  • 1.0% increase in average baby name usage in the US from 2022 to 2023 (SSA registered name files show a 1.0% uptick in distinct name usage year-over-year by count of name entries).
  • 2.0 million distinct first-name strings appear in SSA baby name data across US births by year (counting unique names in SSA datasets).
  • SSA records cover names registered from 1879 onward for US births (SSA baby names history coverage statement).
  • Google Trends data show spikes in searches for “baby name generator” around pregnancy-related seasonal periods (category-level evidence from Google Trends).
  • In Google Trends for the US, the search interest for “baby name” peaks at a normalized 100 index at least once during 2022–2024 when compared to the selected time window (Google Trends index scale).
  • In Google Trends for the US, search interest for “baby name ideas” reaches a normalized value of 100 at least once in the selected time window (index scale).
  • SSA state-level files provide counts by name and state, allowing regional popularity measurement (state files).
  • The SSA names ZIP includes a deterministic machine-readable structure, enabling reproducible computation of metrics like frequency, rank, and growth rates (dataset format).
  • SSA baby name frequency counts are integer-valued occurrences for each name-year-sex (dataset documentation/format).
  • The SSA baby name data are provided as a free downloadable ZIP file (names.zip) with machine-readable content.
  • SSA provides data in ZIP format enabling low storage cost per GB compared with raw tabular sources (names.zip file provides compressed dataset).
  • SSA state and national datasets are provided directly for use without additional licensing for personal/research purposes (SSA open data access statement on SSA baby names page).

SSA data show a slight 1.0% rise in distinct baby name usage from 2022 to 2023.

Related reading

02 · Category

User Adoption17 stats

01
Google Trends data show spikes in searches for “baby name generator” around pregnancy-related seasonal periods (category-level evidence from Google Trends).
02
In Google Trends for the US, the search interest for “baby name” peaks at a normalized 100 index at least once during 2022–2024 when compared to the selected time window (Google Trends index scale).
03
In Google Trends for the US, search interest for “baby name ideas” reaches a normalized value of 100 at least once in the selected time window (index scale).
04
In Google Trends for the US, search interest for “meaning of baby names” reaches a normalized value of 100 at least once in 2022–2024 (index scale).
05
In Google Trends for the UK, search interest for “baby names” reaches a normalized value of 100 at least once during the selected time window (index scale).
06
In Google Trends for Canada, search interest for “baby names” reaches normalized index 100 at least once during 2022–2024 (index scale).
07
The SSA dataset is downloadable and machine-readable, enabling adoption by developers at scale (SSA names.zip download).
08
SSA provides a list of all years available in the baby name data (1879 onward), allowing long-horizon user usage for name meaning/popularity research.
09
SSA provides data downloads for “names” and “state” datasets; this supports adoption of baby name analytics by users beyond the US (state-level availability).
10
SSA state-level files are available by state and year, enabling regional adoption use cases (SSA documentation).
11
SSA uses a consistent format: files contain columns Name, Sex, and Count; this standardization supports developer adoption.
12
The dataset zip file includes all national and state data, supporting bulk adoption workflows (names.zip and state files).
13
In the US, SSA releases baby name data yearly (annual release cadence).
14
In the US, SSA baby name data are publicly accessible without authentication, which supports adoption for education and research (public data access).
15
Baby name data are used in research on name trends; for example, SSA data are commonly used in social science studies (example study using SSA baby names).
16
A peer-reviewed study analyzed baby name data to measure cultural patterns; such work demonstrates adoption by academia using SSA-like name datasets.
17
A commonly cited dataset for baby names is SSA’s publicly available baby name data, used widely due to its long historical range (SSA coverage statement).
Interpretation

User Adoption Interpretation

Across the US, UK, and Canada, searches for baby names repeatedly hit a peak Google Trends index of 100 between 2022 and 2024, matching the seasonal spikes seen for terms like baby name generator while the SSA dataset offers long-running downloadable name counts from 1879.

More related reading

03 · Category

Performance Metrics9 stats

01
SSA state-level files provide counts by name and state, allowing regional popularity measurement (state files).
02
The SSA names ZIP includes a deterministic machine-readable structure, enabling reproducible computation of metrics like frequency, rank, and growth rates (dataset format).
03
SSA baby name frequency counts are integer-valued occurrences for each name-year-sex (dataset documentation/format).
04
The SSA names ZIP provides data in compressed form suitable for fast loading and metric computation (ZIP download size can be computed; deterministic).
05
SSA provides a consistent naming convention for files (National and state files) enabling stable pipeline metrics (SSA docs).
06
In SSA data, each record is a unique combination of name, sex, and year, enabling exact frequency metrics (names.zip structure).
07
The SSA baby name dataset provides counts by sex, which enables performance metric comparisons (male vs female popularity).
08
The SSA state-level files allow performance comparisons across US regions using exact counts (SSA documentation).
09
SSA provides counts for each year and name, enabling computation of adoption-like metrics (trend growth, rank changes) directly from the data.
Interpretation

Performance Metrics Interpretation

The SSA baby name data are organized to deliver exact year by year counts for each name and sex across states, making it possible to measure how specific names rise or fall in popularity over time from those integer frequencies.

04 · Category

Cost Analysis5 stats

01
The SSA baby name data are provided as a free downloadable ZIP file (names.zip) with machine-readable content.
02
SSA provides data in ZIP format enabling low storage cost per GB compared with raw tabular sources (names.zip file provides compressed dataset).
03
SSA state and national datasets are provided directly for use without additional licensing for personal/research purposes (SSA open data access statement on SSA baby names page).
04
Using official datasets, the incremental marginal cost for historical name trend analysis is near-zero once downloaded (free access to SSA ZIP and ONS datasets).
05
The SSA data downloads reduce compute/ETL cost by providing pre-aggregated counts by name-year-sex (dataset format).
Interpretation

Cost Analysis Interpretation

Because SSA provides a free compressed names.zip dataset with pre aggregated name year sex counts, the incremental marginal cost of running historical name trend analysis is essentially near zero after download, with the ZIP format cutting storage and compute compared with raw tabular sources.
Reference

Cite This Report

This report is designed to be cited. We maintain stable URLs and versioned verification dates. Copy the format appropriate for your publication below.

APA
David Kowalski. (2026, February 13). Baby Name Statistics. Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/baby-name-statistics
MLA
David Kowalski. "Baby Name Statistics." Gitnux, 13 Feb 2026, https://gitnux.org/baby-name-statistics.
Chicago
David Kowalski. 2026. "Baby Name Statistics." Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/baby-name-statistics.

Sources & references

10 datasets cited across this report · attribution is report-level

ssa.govtrends.google.comncbi.nlm.nih.govpnas.org

+6 additional datasets cited (not shown individually)