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US baby names: the 2000s

Every American decade leaves its mark on the registry books, and the 2000s are no exception. In the Social Security Administration's public records, Emily led among girls with 223,768 babies registered over the decade, and Jacob came first among boys with 274,077. In all, the decade added up to 18,476,657 girl registrations and 19,960,439 boy registrations; the tables below list the 100 most common names of each sex, with the official counts.

Girls' top 100 of the 2000s

Boys' top 100 of the 2000s

The picture of the 2000s

Against the previous decade, 11 names debuted in the girls' top 20: Madison, Emma, Olivia, Abigail, Isabella and Sophia and 5 more; on the boys' side, the 4 newcomers were Ethan, Alexander, Jonathan and Noah.

Mia made the biggest climb among girls, from rank 200 to 26; Gavin made the biggest climb among boys, from rank 183 to 51. Ava is the most distinctive girls' name of the 2000s: it reached rank 16 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names; on the other side, Jayden is the most distinctive boys' name of the 2000s: it reached rank 49 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names.

The 10 most common girls' names covered 8.7% of all girls registered, down from 12.1% in the previous decade; for boys, the top 10 accounted for 10.9%, down from 16.1% in the previous decade.

Compare with the 1990s, when Jessica and Michael led, and with the 2010s, which crowned Emma and Noah. The archive with every decade shows the whole timeline at once.

Source: Social Security Administration, public data. The series comes from Social Security number applications in the United States and starts in 1880; names with fewer than 5 occurrences in a year are excluded for privacy. Snapshot of 2026-07-10.

Last updated: 2026-07-13 · Methodology and sources