When family and lifestyle expert and blogger Donna Bozzo (a.k.a. The Lady with the Alligator Purse) was sorting through baby girl names, she knew she wanted something unique and beautiful. She and her husband chose Ava. “The only Ava I knew was Ava Gardner,” she says. “I was worried it was too old-fashioned, but we loved it. So we went with it.”
She didn’t realize until Ava was 6 months old that, far from being a unique name, Ava was an increasingly common choice for new parents. In 2014, Ava was the No. 5 name choice for baby girls, based on names provided for Social Security number cards issued by the Social Security Administration (SSA). “We were at a baby pool and there were like eight Avas,” Bozzo says. “But what can you do?”
A similar thing happened with her daughter Grace. There are three Graces in her daughter’s class, which means even her family sometimes calls her “Grace Bozzo” to identify her rather than just Grace. “It’s my own daughter and we do that,” Bozzo sighs. Despite the popularity of the names, Bozzo says she wouldn’t change her daughters’ names. “They’ve grown into those names — that’s who they are,” she says.
June Rifkin Clark, the author of “The Everything Baby Names Book,” which gives 50,000 choices to help parents find the right moniker, says keeping an eye on current popular actors, characters and other types of public people can give parents some sense when a name will have a renewed popularity.
Charlotte, for instance, already on the way up the popularity charts (the SSA ranked it the No. 46 most popular name in the United States in 2010 — it jumped to No. 10 in 2014), is bound to become even more common now that William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, chose the name for their royal infant.
“Really, it just comes down to a gut decision for parents,” says Rifkin Clark. Family, religion, culture, education, socioeconomic and negative or positive associations all play a part in deciding on baby girl names — whether consciously or unconsciously, she says. Parents should think about the cultural associations of a name like Adolf, for example. So are you wondering what to name your little sweetie?
Here are 101 top baby girl names, based on the Social Security Administration’s 2014 records:
- Aaliyah
- Abigail
- Addison
- Alexa
- Alexandra
- Alexis
- Alice
- Allison
- Alyssa
- Amelia
- Anna
- Annabelle
- Aria
- Ariana
- Arianna
- Ashley
- Aubrey
- Aubree
- Audrey
- Autumn
- Ava
- Avery
- Bella
- Brooklyn
- Brianna
- Camila
- Caroline
- Charlotte
- Chloe
- Claire
- Ella
- Eleanor
- Elizabeth
- Ellie
- Emma
- Emily
- Eva
- Evelyn
- Faith
- Gabriella
- Genesis
- Gianna
- Grace
- Hadley
- Hailey
- Hannah
- Harper
- Isabelle
- Isabella
- Jasmine
- Julia
- Katherina
- Kaylee
- Kennedy
- Khloe
- Kylie
- Lauren
- Layla
- Leah
- Lillian
- Lily
- London
- Lucy
- Lydia
- Mackenzie
- Madelyn
- Madeline
- Madison
- Maya
- Melanie
- Mia
- Mila
- Morgan
- Naomi
- Natalie
- Neveah
- Nora
- Olivia
- Paisley
- Penelope
- Peyton
- Piper
- Riley
- Ruby
- Sadie
- Samantha
- Sarah
- Savannah
- Scarlett
- Serenity
- Skylar
- Sophia
- Sofia
- Sophie
- Stella
- Taylor
- Victoria
- Violet
- Vivian
- Zoey
- Zoe
Kara (No. 442) Murphy is a freelance writer in Erie, Pennsylvania. Her children are named Zoe (No. 32) and Max (No. 112).