What are the most common - top 100 (or more) - children's names for
children born within the last 5 years?
At a minimum, I am looking for the top 100 (or more) boys names and
the top 100 girls names. At the
"great-additional-information-if-it's-available" would be to have that
list sorted by from most common names to least common names.  At the
"wow-that-knocks-my-socks-off" level of information, I would like to
know the percentile ranking of each name on that list.

Hi davidlu:

Thanks for the interesting question!

I am going to assume that you are asking for most popular baby names
within the United States. (It would be pret' near impossible to
compile worldwide statistics on this.)

The best source at I could find on this came from: 

Social Security Administration: Popular Baby Names
URL: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/

They've sliced and diced the data on this a dozen different ways.
Halfway down the page on the left they have a function that allows you
to find the Top ### names for any of the last 12 years. What I did to
compile your figures was

* take the top 500 for each of the years 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999 and
1998 and combine them into a spreadsheet

* so that I could tally up the top 150 names in *any* individual year
(for both boys and girls).

* Then, I added over the five years and sorted. 

I was unable to find the data that specified how many total births
there were each year (i.e., how many newborns were registered with the
SSA) so I could not find the percentiles you wanted. If you want, I
could figure out what percent of the top 100 names each name is, but
I'm not sure that's what you're after...


Anyways, after *a lot* of cutting and pasting and number crunching,
the winners are:


100 most common boys' names of the last 5 years, sorted by total
number:

               Total	
Jacob          159973	
Michael        153117	
Matthew        134368	
Joshua         129336	
Christopher    117218	
Nicholas       114374	
Andrew         109858	
Joseph         107824	
Daniel         105323	
Tyler           99964	
William         97655	
Brandon         94729	
David           93865	
Anthony         93617	
Ryan            93115	
John            93050	
Zachary         90456	
James           85148	
Austin          84558	
Alexander       83681	
Justin          81053	
Jonathan        79708	
Ethan           74622	
Dylan           73886	
Christian       73336	
Samuel          68125	
Benjamin        66251	
Robert          64799	
Noah            64657	
Jose            64403	
Kevin           62179	
Nathan          60065	
Thomas          58712	
Kyle            58417	
Jordan          58211	
Cameron         55527	
Hunter          54909	
Logan           51017	
Caleb           48600	
Jason           46407	
Gabriel         46139	
Aaron           45951	
Eric            43133	
Brian           41567	
Luis            40941	
Adam            38273	
Juan            38084	
Connor          37849	
Isaiah          37560	
Jack            37451	
Elijah          36298	
Charles         35350	
Steven          34780	
Sean            34779	
Isaac           34655	
Cody            34242	
Luke            33900	
Carlos          33790	
Angel           33760	
Evan            33367	
Timothy         33199	
Alex            33085	
Jared           31672	
Nathaniel       31553	
Mason           30774	
Bryan           30245	
Richard         29455	
Patrick         29010	
Jesus           28923	
Ian             28637	
Jackson         28576	
Devin           28345	
Seth            28244	
Trevor          27508	
Cole            27018	
Adrian          26383	
Chase           24977	
Mark            24241	
Blake           24181	
Garrett         23963	
Jeremy          23397	
Antonio         23350	
Gavin           22957	
Miguel          22572	
Lucas           22491	
Jesse           22173	
Alejandro       21755	
Dakota          21144	
Julian          20704	
Kenneth         20299	
Victor          20151	
Sebastian       19868	
Bryce           19832	
Tanner          19676	
Dalton          19594	
Stephen         19534	
Spencer         18974	
Jake            18613	
Aidan           18273	


100 most common girls' names of the last 5 years, sorted by total
number:

               Total	
Emily          122245	
Hannah         100252	
Madison         95310	
Alexis          83738	
Ashley          83512	
Sarah           82386	
Samantha        82206	
Jessica         72039	
Taylor          71584	
Elizabeth       71031	
Alyssa          64249	
Lauren          64035	
Abigail         63257	
Emma            61929	
Olivia          60504	
Kayla           59874	
Brianna         57583	
Megan           53697	
Victoria        52251	
Rachel          49995	
Grace           48527	
Anna            46857	
Jennifer        45724	
Sydney          45082	
Morgan          44197	
Jasmine         43309	
Destiny         42145	
Nicole          41876	
Julia           40755	
Amanda          40360	
Kaitlyn         39064	
Haley           38653	
Natalie         38334	
Katherine       37612	
Alexandra       37188	
Stephanie       35086	
Isabella        35043	
Maria           33375	
Hailey          32402	
Allison         32207	
Rebecca         32027	
Savannah        31980	
Chloe           31791	
Sophia          31130	
Amber           29365	
Jordan          28994	
Mackenzie       28600	
Mary            28174	
Brooke          27652	
Danielle        27480	
Gabrielle       26990	
Andrea          26692	
Brittany        25779	
Sara            25775	
Sierra          25667	
Katelyn         25573	
Jenna           25532	
Courtney        25515	
Michelle        25339	
Kimberly        25307	
Madeline        24962	
Vanessa         24068	
Erin            23789	
Makayla         23770	
Paige           22933	
Shelby          22494	
Caroline        22429	
Faith           22191	
Bailey          21551	
Kaylee          21517	
Melissa         21411	
Jacqueline      19634	
Autumn          19370	
Marissa         19202	
Christina       19066	
Mariah          18806	
Zoe             18646	
Kelsey          18625	
Alexa           18445	
Mia             18323	
Laura           17997	
Breanna         17917	
Angela          17735	
Briana          17305	
Claire          17257	
Caitlin         17120	
Alexandria      17009	
Catherine       16771	
Kylie           16661	
Jada            16482	
Leslie          16454	
Kathryn         16422	
Isabel          16373	
Sabrina         16320	
Gabriella       16273	
Katie           16152	
Leah            16136	
Cheyenne        15988	
Tiffany         15980	

If you would like a copy of the spreadsheet in which I did my
calculations, just let me know and I'll post it.

If you need any clarification of the information I have provided,
please ask using the clarification feature and provide me with
additional details as to what you are looking for. As well, please
allow me to provide you with clarification(s) *before* you rate this
answer.
                         
Thanks. 

websearcher-ga


Search Strategy (on Google):

"most popular" "baby names"

Outstanding work. Thanks!