Today we’ll look at debuts of baby names – names that show up on the list for the first time. The original name list dates from 1880, and all of the common names of that era appear on this list. In fact, most of the currently-popular names were in use back then too: of the top-10 boys and girls names in 2018, all were on the 1880 list except Liam (first used in 1947), Mia (1933), and Harper (1971).
When names first appear on the list they typically barely make it above the five-name cutoff (remember, for privacy/anonymization reasons the data does not include names that have less than five occurrences). After the debut year, the names may grow in popularity, or languish in obscurity, or just disappear. Or sometimes a combination: there were five Liams in 1947; it only showed up once on the list between then and 1954; the name was pretty obscure until the 1990s, then it took off and became the juggernaut that it is today.
But what about names that debuted with a relatively-high level of popularity? Here are most popular name debuts:
| Name | Boy/Girl | Debut year | Number in debut |
| Kizzy | girl | 1977 | 1116 |
| Nakia | boy | 1974 | 612 |
| Levar | boy | 1977 | 523 |
| Isamar | girl | 1990 | 446 |
| Moesha | girl | 1996 | 426 |
| Sade | girl | 1985 | 393 |
| Zhavia | girl | 2018 | 306 |
| Erykah | girl | 1997 | 279 |
The names in this list have three things in common. First, they stem from a popular culture reference. Kizzy was a character in the massively-popular Roots miniseries in 1977 (Levar is an actor from that same series). Nakia was a short-lived TV show in 1974 (interestingly, Nakia as a girls name almost topped this list: there were 1134 girls named Nakia in 1974, but it actually made its debut the previous year when seven girls got the name). Isamar, Moesha, and Fallon are characters from TV shows as well, while Sade, Zhavia, and Erykah are popular musicians. (Sade actually ranks second on this list if you include the variant spellings of Shardae, Sharde, and Sharday).
Second, none of these names were all that popular. Sure, there were 1116 Kizzy girls in 1977, but that still only ranked #223. Most people resisted jumping on the popular culture bandwagon.
Finally, none of these names lasted. Their popularity dropped, usually precipitously. Not to say that they are necessarily bad names. But names based on a singular popular event or person just don’t seem to have staying power. So don’t get your hopes up for Zhavia.
