Our Methodology

Choosing a name for your child is a big decision, and you deserve to know exactly where our popularity numbers and meaning entries come from. This page lays it out plainly — our primary source, how we compute trends, and what our data does and does not cover.

Primary source: US Social Security Administration

Every popularity number you see on NameBlooms is anchored in the US Social Security Administration's Baby Names database. The SSA has published the annual frequency of every first name given to at least five US babies since 1880, drawn from Social Security card applications. It is the most complete and longest-running record of US naming behavior in existence and is the source researchers, journalists, and every other baby-name site ultimately rely on.

For each name on NameBlooms, we publish:

• the year-by-year count or percentage from the SSA record,
• the peak year (the year in which the name saw its highest share of US babies),
• the peak percentage (the share of babies of that sex who received the name in its peak year), and
• a trend label (classic, rising, falling, vintage revival, new or rare) derived deterministically from the SSA time series.

How we classify trend status

Trend labels are computed from the SSA popularity curve, not from editorial opinion. The rules:

• Classic— in the US top tier consistently for multiple decades, including the current period.
• Rising— current popularity is meaningfully higher than it was a decade ago.
• Falling— current popularity is meaningfully lower than its historical average.
• Vintage revival— the name peaked 60 or more years ago, faded, and is now climbing again.
• New or rare— the name has limited historical depth in the SSA record or sits outside the top thousand.

Origins and meanings

The SSA publishes names, not etymologies. For origin and meaning we maintain a curated reference table built from established onomastic sources, including:

• Behind the Name (Mike Campbell) — an academic-quality onomastic database with sourced etymologies for names across languages.
• Oxford Dictionary of First Names — Patrick Hanks & Flavia Hodges (Oxford University Press) — the standard reference for English first-name origins.
• Wikipedia name articles — useful for cross-checking cultural and regional notes.

When multiple reputable sources disagree about a name's precise origin (a common situation for names that cross language families), we lean on the majority view and note the ambiguity in the cultural-background section. Every name page links out to Behind the Name and Wikipedia so you can verify the meaning yourself.

Cross-reference and verification

We publish the sources alongside every name page so you can double-check any figure that matters to your decision:

• SSA Baby Names — the official and definitive source for US popularity.
• US Census Bureau Genealogy — historical records for surname context and deep ancestry.
• Behind the Name — sourced etymologies for given names across languages.

Update frequency

The SSA publishes new baby name data once a year, typically in May, with data for the previous calendar year. We refresh our dataset within days of each SSA release. Every name page shows the vintage of the underlying SSA data so you know exactly how fresh the popularity numbers are.

Limitations you should know about

• US-only popularity. The SSA record covers names given to US babies. If you are choosing a name in another country, trends there may differ substantially.
• Minimum-count threshold. The SSA only publishes names given to at least five babies in a given year. Very rare names may appear sporadically or not at all.
• Sex is recorded binary. The SSA records names against the sex marker on the application. Names used across sex lines may appear in our data under whichever group is larger.
• Spelling variants count separately.In the SSA record, “Sophia” and “Sofia” are distinct entries. Our ranking reflects that — a name may be more popular than it looks if you account for common variants.
• Not a prediction. Popularity curves describe the past. A name trending upward today may continue to rise or may reverse. Use trend labels as context, not as forecasts.

Corrections and feedback

If you find an origin, meaning, or cultural note you believe is wrong, please contact us with the name and the source you trust. Corrections from careful readers are how we improve the dataset.

This methodology page was last reviewed in March 2026. Material changes to how we source or compute the data will be reflected here before they reach production pages.