Name Guides
Understanding baby names, one guide at a time
In-depth guides on how name popularity actually works, each one written by Paul Kendall and grounded in this site's own SSA data rather than generic advice.
The History of American Baby Names: A Century of SSA Data
How the Social Security Administration's baby name records came to be, and what a century of data reveals about naming in America.
How Baby Name Trends Rise and Fall: What the Data Shows
Using a century of SSA data to look at how quickly names actually climb the popularity charts, and how quickly they fall.
Understanding Name Popularity Rankings: What the Numbers Actually Mean
A plain-language guide to reading name rank and count data correctly, using real examples from the site's own dataset.
Nostalgia Names: Why Old-Fashioned Names Keep Coming Back
Four real, data-verified examples of names that fell out of favor for decades before climbing back near the top.
Celebrity and Pop Culture Influence on Baby Naming Trends
How much film and television actually move baby name data, checked against three real, verifiable examples — written from a decade-plus in the entertainment industry.
Unisex and Gender-Neutral Names: A Growing Trend
Five real, data-verified names that moved toward — or away from — gender balance over the last two decades, and what that reveals about how these trends actually behave.
Invented and Unique Spellings: A Growing Naming Trend
Real spelling-family data — Aiden, Jackson, Mackenzie, and more — showing exactly how much popular names fragment across alternate spellings, and which ones don't.
How to Use Historical Name Data When Choosing a Name
A practical, worked-example guide to using this site's random picker, year browser, and search tool to get real signal instead of noise.