Fifty years from now a lot of middle-aged men will be named Logan…and a lot of middle-aged women will be named Addison. Today they’re babies…and their names are among the most popular names given babies in the last year.
Sometimes a person’s name defines the era of their birth. The state health department goes through birth certificates to find the most common names. Names like Gertrude and Herbert are not popular enough to make the top ten. They weren’t even popular enough to make the top 100 five years ago. But in another generation they were popular.
The department’s Wayne Shramm who goes through about 80,000 birth certificates a year has listed the top ten names Missouri parents gave their newborns in 2009
For girls:
One other t
hing he has noticed—Parents seem to be more original in their naming these days.
Some of the names might have a higher rank if all of the various spellings are added up. But the department’s list only includes “Michael” spelled “m-i-c-h-a-e-l,” for instance…
Some names are more enduring than others. Jacob and Emma were number one five years ago. Other, more transitory names, have fallen by the wayside. Brittany and Ashton, for instance, don'[t make the healdines they once made—and don’t make lists of popular names for babies either.
