Top Baby Names of 2016

It’s that time of year again. With 2016 coming to a close, it’s time to see what baby names were most popular with parents this year. BabyCenter released their list of 100 most popular names for both girls and boys for 2016 and while many of the names may come as no surprise, there were some names that broke the top 100 that show just what new parents are using as inspiration. The list is compiled based from the nearly 400,000 parents who shared their baby’s name with us in 2016

So where did parents get their inspiration? BabyCenter analyzed the trends and this is what they found:

 

Powerful Women

2016 was not lacking powerful women that made headlines, and parents noted the names of those powerful females. The name Hillary was up 64 percent this year. Ellen was up 30 percent, Venus was up 26 percent, and Ivanka was up 39 percent in 2016.

 

Horror Shows

This might be a bit creepy to some, but pop culture definitely inspired some baby names from our favorite scary shows. While parents were relaxing and watching shows like The Walking Dead to Stranger Things, they were also taking notes of the characters names. Names like Hershell, Tyreese, Jusing and Joyce were all up by big percentages this year.

 

SUPERHEROES

Everyone loves a good superhero, and parents took to their favorites for baby name inspiration. BabyCenter said that names like Bruce and Harley were up in the list this year.

 

STEM

For those of you that love technology, you’ll be happy to know that more parents use that for inspiration this year. For the Apple fans, you’ll be happy to know that the name was up more than 30 percent with both boys and girls. And parents were really getting clever this year with their name choices, Cloud was also on the rise, in fact it was up 76 percent for boys, as was both Cortana and Dot.

 

Here are the top 10 names for 2016

GIRLS

1. SOPHIA
2. EMMA
3. OLIVIA
4. AVA
5. MIA
6. ISABELLA
7. RILEY
8. ARIA
9. ZOE
10. CHARLOTTE

Boys

1. JACKSON
2. AIDEN
3. LUCAS
4. LIAM
5. NOAH
6. ETHAN
7. MASON
8. CADEN
9. OLIVER
10. ELIJAH

The top 10 list is nearly identical to the 2015 and 2014 list for both girls and boys.  For the entire list of Top Baby Names of 2016, check it out on BabyCenter.