Our Methodology

Popularity data

Rankings and birth counts come from the U.S. Social Security Administration's public baby names dataset, which reports names on Social Security card applications. We import the annual files, retain the source URL and retrieval provenance, and display the published counts for comparison. The data describes U.S. records, not worldwide naming or a measure of a name's quality, and it does not capture every naming context.

How to read rankings

A rank is a comparison within one year and list, while a count is the number of births represented in that source file. A name outside the displayed top-1,000 extract is not necessarily unused. Labels such as “popular,” “rising,” and “rare” are directional descriptions based on the available years, not official SSA designations or predictions.

Update cadence and limitations

SSA popularity files are generally released annually. We refresh the site when a new validated file is available; each import must contain the expected yearly extracts before it can update the catalog. Rankings can change with later releases, and historical values are not silently rewritten. Meanings, origins, and pronunciation guidance are separate editorial content and should not be inferred from a popularity rank.

Meanings and origins

Meanings and origins are original editorial summaries drawn from established linguistic references and cross-checked before a name enters the public catalog. A name is not listed for discovery while its origin is unknown or its meaning is still marked unreliable. See the editorial policy for how we write, review, and correct that copy.

Pronunciation

When a pronunciation guide is shown, it reflects the most common U.S. usage we have on record. Names without a distinct pronunciation note are not given a guessed phonetic spelling.

Coverage

The public catalog is a quality-gated subset of a larger internal SSA-backed corpus. A name profile is submitted to search only when the About that is shown is an editorial summary rather than the short catalog template or a promotional slogan; those profiles stay browsable and are marked noindex. Origin hubs are indexed only on page 1, and only when they have an editorial introduction plus enough linked names. Meaning hubs stay noindex until they have enough linked names. Later pages of browse lists, and year-by-year popularity shells, also stay noindex so those URLs are not treated as separate articles.