Top Baby Names Of 2006 Revealed

May 16, 2007

Every year, the FridayÂ preceding Mother’s Day is an important day for anyone interested in the most popular baby names in the United States. That’s the day when the U.S. Social Security Administration posts to its websiteÂ the data for theÂ previous calendar yearÂ showing the most popular baby names in the country.Â

It’s like the Academy Awards for the baby names crowd, only not as much fun.

This year, there was hardly any change in the top ten names for both boys and girls. In fact, the top girl’s name in the United States, for the eleventh boring year in a row, is Emily. (Nothing wrong with Emily, but number one for over a decade? Whatever happened to creative baby naming?). And for boys, Jacob was the top baby name for the eighth year in a row. Yawn.

Here is aÂ useful roundup of the top baby names of 2006.

With the exception of Reese Witherspoon’s “Ava,”Â which madeÂ an impressive showing at number 5, and possibly Gwen Stefani’s “Kingston,” debuting in the top 1000 at number 941, I don’t see muchÂ crossover from the world of celebrity baby namesÂ to the real world. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, since celebrity baby names are on the leading edge of our culture, except in cases where the name has fallen clear over the edge. (Moxie Crimefighter comes to mind, as does Kal-El, Pilot Inspektor, and Apple).

Considering it was 2006, one might have expectedÂ the namesÂ Shiloh or Suri to crack the top 1000, but there was no sign of either.

If anything, some celebrity baby namesÂ seem to reflect the real world, rather than vice versa. Kevin Costner’s new baby boy, Cayden, is a good example. Cayden is an increasingly popular name in the “aden” category, including all kinds of rhyming variants such as Jayden, Braden, Aiden, Kayden, etc. Costner, in fact, is quite the trendy baby namer — his son’s middle name Wyatt, also chosen by Sheryl Crow, is also an increasingly popular name.

The name Sebastian,Â picked for her sonÂ by actress Kim Fields, is also growing more popular, as is Marcia Cross’s “Savannah” and T.V .Psychic John Edwards’s “Olivia.”

But perhaps the biggest name to move between Hollywood and the rest of us is the name Addison, whichÂ happens to beÂ the name of Kate Walsh’s character on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy. InÂ the 2006Â rankings, the name Addison was the fastest-rising name in the top 100, rocketing from number 106 to number 27.

Is it life imitating art, or art imitating life? Or is it all just one big blur?