Thursday, May 29, 2008

Normal, but not TOO normal :)

I have been a big fan of name popularity sights for some time now. Baby Name Voyager is one of my faves, but I always wonder... how reliable is that info? Well, another fave of mine is the Social Security site. You heard me correctly.... Social Security. They document which baby names are most popular and publish a list every May for the previous year. The list can include the total number of babies born that year with that name as well as a percentage and it has them ranked 1 to I think 1000. Anyhoo, I've been dying for the 2007 list to be published so that I could see how Micah was faring.... and it finally is!!

Micah is ranked 126th among boys names for 2007, which is fine and dandy with me. It means he has a normal name that isn't too overly popular. I always find it amusing though the names that come in ahead of him. On this year's list, more people in the US named their boys Angel, Julian, Wyatt, Sebastian and Josiah than chose Micah. In addition, three different spellings of Aiden were higher on the list than Micah. I am gratified that Micah managed to stay ahead of Giovanni by a few spots, but I have to admit that I was slightly dumbfounded to see Stephen at number 172.

Anyhoo, just thought I'd give a quick shout out to Abigail way up at number 8 on the girls list. My parents were WAY ahead of their time. The year that they gave me my name, it was only 151st on the list.... it didn't get too popular til about 2000 or so. Way to go Mom and Dad :)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know,

I have noticed that I hear the name "Abigail" more often in public...why just yesterday when I was shopping with Grandmommy for sofas at Lazy Boy, the sales clerk called us over to show us her favorite couch which is named...Abigail:)

Anonymous said...

I've known an "Angel" or two. It's a popular name in South America and not considered any stranger name for your boy than say "Jesus". Just out of curiosity, where is "Mark" on the list? I bet "Susan" is somewhere way down as well.

Abby said...

Mark is actually doing well at #138 (slightly down from #8 when you were born :) Susan on the other hand in at #644 from #4 when mom was born... so your name is hanging in there a little better :P

Oh, and mom... I'll add the couch to my list of things named after me. This now includes a couch, a duvet cover, several dogs and one of my college profs favorite cows...score!