The Social Security Administration has released the government’s data on the top 10 baby names of 2008. Here they are ….
Emma
I wanted to name my children unusual names. I didn’t want weird names, but names that every other kid didn’t have. I wanted pretty names, old fashioned names perhaps. Names that were theirs and they didn’t have to share with every other child in their age group. I failed miserably at my quest for the perfect, uncommon names.
I named my son Joshua and my daughter Amanda. When the Social Security Administration released the most popular names for the years they were born, both of their names topped the lists. Actually, they topped the lists for several years in a row at the time. I didn’t know. I didn’t know any little kids at the time and had not heard of other people naming their children these names. As it turned out, both of my children spent their school years having to go by their first and last initials to differentiate them from the other children in their classes with the same first name. Well, I still like those names, but they weren’t uncommon by any stretch of the imagination.
Now I have my very first lovely grandbaby. She is two weeks old today and she’s absolutely gorgeous (I know that’s totally unbiased). My son and daughter-in-law have named her Emma. Emma is the most popular girls name this year. It seems this habit of naming our children the most popular name of the year has been passed down to another generation.
The name ‘Emma’ is derived from the German word ‘ermen’. Ermen can mean ’strong’, but is usually used to mean ‘whole or ‘complete’. It was a popular name in the 1800s, but fell out of the top 300 names in the 1970s. In the last 7 years it has been in the top 5 most popular names. It rose to the most popular name for a girl this year after finishing 3rd last year. Emily has been the most popular name since 1996, but fell to number 3 this year.
Here are the top ten most popular names for 2008 (based on statistics from the Social Security Administration and on spelling as opposed to how a name sounds).
Top 10 most popular girls names:
1. Emma
2. Isabella
3. Emily
4. Madison
5. Ava
6. Olivia
7. Sophia
8. Abigail
9. Elizabeth
10. Chloe
Top 10 most popular boys names:
1. Jacob
2. Michael
3. Ethan
4. Joshua
5. Daniel
6. Alexander
7. Anthony
8. William
9. Christopher
10. Matthew
Here’s another photo of Emma, just cause ……
Emma
May 9th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
We did the same thing. Of course, Ray, was named after his father and grandfather but when we picked the name Jared we thought he would probably never meet another….but we were wrong!
Emma is a doll and I know you are just dying to get your hands on her. Give her a big kiss from all her kinfolk when you get to Germany!!!
May 9th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
You di not mention that both Joshus and Amanda were family names from their father’s side of ther fmaly tree.
May 11th, 2009 at 2:10 am
This is crap.
Most boring names ever!!