The Social Security department puts out a list of names chosen for babies. Every year, this generates a series of news stories about the most popular baby names. The data, which goes back decades, also feeds Wolfram Alpha’s database (here is an example).
The data is broken down by states, so let’s have some fun with that. Let’s start with the most popular girls name in 2018, Emma (the data for 2019 hasn’t been released yet). The follow graph indicates the popularity of a name by state: darkest blue is the most popular, light shades (close to white) are least popular. [Note that for privacy reasons the data is anonymized, such that if, for each state, there are fewer than five babies born with given name, zero is reported. So a state that displays as no names (white) may in fact have a small number of them.]
Not only was Emma popular, it was popular everywhere. Even in the state where it was least popular (Mississippi), it still ranked 3rd in girls names.
Let’s try to find some names with geographical diversity, shall we? Sticking with top-10 names for now, Isabella (#4 girls) is popular in the southwest, northeast, and Florida:
Sophia (#5) looks remarkably similar:
(Funny thing about Sophia. The alternate spelling of “Sofia” has pretty much the same distribution as “Sophia”. However, “Sophie” is a completely different animal:
Big in New England, and with the Mormons? Okay…)
Back to top-10 names, Harper (9) and Evelyn (10) are popular in the North. Just not necessarily the same states.
Over to the boys’ top-10. Just like Sophie, Oliver displays another weird connection between Utah and New England
While Elijah is definitely a Southern name:
Outside of the top-10, let’s look at names that are particularly popular in a state, compared to the national average. To make it on this list, the name has to be 1) at least 3 times more popular in the state than the national average, and 2) in the top-10 names for that state.
| Name | State | Times more popular | State Rank | National Rank |
| Aurora | AK | 3.6 | 1 | 44 |
| Kingston | MS | 3.5 | 8 | 117 |
| Paisley | WV | 3.4 | 7 | 52 |
| Willow | WV | 3.4 | 8 | 62 |
| Lucy | UT | 3.3 | 5 | 51 |
| Naomi | DC | 3.1 | 9 | 64 |
| Nora | VT | 3.0 | 5 | 30 |
(Kingston is the only boy’s name on the list; the rest are girls)
That Aurora is popular in Alaska is not surprising (as in “Aurora Borealis”). Lucy Smith was the mother of Joseph Smith, founder of the Later Day Saint movement (i.e, Mormonism), so Lucy’s popularity in Utah makes sense. Kingston is an up-and-coming name, basically unheard of until 15 years ago. It is almost exclusive to the South, and centered in Mississippi. As for Naomi, my guess is that it is popular among African-Americans, who comprise nearly 50% of Washington D.C.’s population.
Why West Virginia has two names on this list (Paisley and Willow), I can’t say. As for Nora, it has risen from obscurity 20 years ago to become a fairly popular name. But in 2018 its popularity dipped a bit, except in Vermont where it actually increased. This explains why Nora stands out in Vermont: we hit peak-Nora in 2017, and Vermont just hasn’t got the message.
