Most Popular Baby Names in the US

Naming My Baby with Power BI

Anyone who knows me is well aware of my enthusiasm for data, especially when it involves Power BI. So, it might not come as a shock that when my wife, Jen, and I discovered we were expecting our third child, we faced a familiar challenge: choosing a name. It's almost a tradition for us to disagree on baby names, particularly for girls.

With our names being Jeff and Jen, we've always liked the idea of choosing names that are common enough to be recognized but not so popular that they'd be shared by every other child at school. Choosing Olivia's name was a bit of a leap for us; we didn't know her personality yet and, honestly, we were both on the fence about the name but couldn't settle on anything better at the time.

Now, we couldn't be happier with our choice - it suits her perfectly. Our second, Avery, was a name we both fell in love with instantly. However, we couldn't use it for Olivia because, at that time, I was employed at Avery Dennison. Naming your child after your workplace, WHILE currently working there? Just weird, in my opinion.

Anyone who's been pregnant knows one of the first questions people ask is about baby names. And that's when the opinions start pouring in. Why that name? What does it mean? "I knew a kid with that name, and his mom's in jail..." – really, people?

Fast forward to our third pregnancy. We had always found out the gender of our babies early on, being the planners we are. This time, though, we chose the surprise route, deciding not to find out until the birth.

As the due date approached, the baby name discussion resurfaced. We both agreed we liked names starting with a vowel. If it was a boy, we were set on Austin – easy decision. But a girl's name? That's where we hit a wall. The options seemed endless, and Jen even browsed through the previous year's popular names without much luck.

Turning Data into Decisions

Then, inspiration struck. What if we could analyze every baby name in the US, by year? A deep dive into data.gov provided a dataset spanning over a century. Perfect! Armed with data analytics, I was ready to tackle the baby-naming challenge, embracing my inner "Dorkiness."

The report I created was nothing short of amazing. It allowed us to slice and dice names by gender, decade, even state. We could categorize names by their initial letter. Did you know that since 1910, names beginning with A-E have been most popular? And since 1980, K-O took the second spot. If you're skeptical, feel free to skip to the end of this blog and see for yourself.

While this report opened up new ways to explore names beyond just looking at last year's top picks, it wasn't the silver bullet I hoped for. It introduced new dilemmas – "Arianna" with one "n" or two? And names like Jaedyn or Logan – for a boy or girl? Instead of narrowing down our choices, we found ourselves with even more questions.

As Jen went into labor, we were still at an impasse on a girl's name. Deep down, we suspected it would be a girl, considering our history. The prospect of leaving the hospital without a name for our baby cast a dark shadow on my thoughts, when this was supposed to be a joyful day.

Then, the moment of truth: "It's a BOY!" And just like that, our concerns vanished. We both still loved the name Austin. Our baby wouldn't be nameless after all.

In hindsight, building that elaborate baby name report might seem like a "HUGE waste of time," especially since we had already agreed on a name. But it wasn't all for naught – plenty of others have used the report for their baby-naming adventures. Take a look below, play around with it, and maybe share it with expectant parents you know.