Kardashian effect strikes again as Mason is revealed to be hottest baby name for new parents (but Jacob still ranks top for 13th year straight)
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UPDATED:
11:36 GMT, 15 May 2012
Her sense of style is coveted by many but now Kourtney Kardashian has influenced the world of parenting.
While Jacob has been found to be the most popular name for boys for the 13th year straight, Mason has come in at second place according to a list made by the U.S. Social Security Administration.
The placing is due to the reality TV star naming her first born Mason Disick, who she gave birth to in December 2009 following a heavily
publicized pregnancy.
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Loved: Jacob tops baby names while Mason (middle), as in the son of Kourtney Kardashian (left) and nephew to Kim (right), is the second most popular
Mason jumped 10 spots to become the second most
popular name for newborn boys last year, knocking Michael out of the top
five for the first time in 63 years according to the Associated Press.
Rounding out the top five: William, Jayden and Noah. Michael came in sixth, his lowest ranking since 1948.
Sophia is the new most popular baby name for girls.
Isabella,
which had been the top girl's name for two years, dropped to second
place in 2011, according to the list released Monday by the U.S. Social
Security Administration. Emma, Olivia and Ava rounded out the top five.
The
Social Security Administration provides lists of baby names dating to
1880 on its website. The top two names that year were John and Mary.
The
list, which includes top baby names by state, draws millions of people.
The agency hopes that people go to the website to see the baby names
and stay to learn about other services, said Social Security
Commissioner Michael J. Astrue.
Popular: Jerseylicious star Briella Calafiore (left) has inspired the fastest rising girls' name and Britney Spears (right) named her second son Jayden
Top girl names tend to be more
volatile – changing from year to year – while the top boy names are more
stable, Astrue said.
William, for example, has been a popular boy's
name for more than 100 years, never falling out of the top 20. Mason is
the exception, entering the top 100 for the first time in 1997.
On the girls' side, Sophia first cracked the top 100 in 1997. Isabella dropped off the list altogether from 1949 to 1990.
Social Security also tracks which names increase in popularity from year to year and which ones drop.
'Celebrity naming is just about
the exposure, and about everybody hearing that name at the same time'
The
fastest rising name for girls: Briella, which jumped 394 spots, to No.
497.
Briella Calafiore stars in Jerseylicious, a reality TV show about
battling stylists at a beauty salon in Green Brook, New Jersey. She's also in a
spinoff called Glam Fairy.
Brantley was the fastest rising name
for boys, jumping 416 spots to No. 320. Brantley Gilbert is a singer
who had a No. 1 country hit called Country Must Be Country Wide.
Americans
get baby names from a lot of places – religion, relatives and, yes,
popular culture, said Laura Wattenberg, creator of the website,
babynamewizard.com.
Wattenberg likened baby naming trends to 'a fossil record of our culture.'
'It
shows what we're paying attention to, what we're thinking about,' she
said.
THE TOP FIVE NAMES FOR BABY GIRLS
Sophia
Isabella
Emma
Olivia
Ava
'Today, you can't walk through a supermarket without learning more
than you hoped to know about the Kardashian family. That's just
reality.'
But, Wattenberg said, parents aren't necessarily paying
homage to celebrities.
In many cases, they are simply using a name they
might not have heard otherwise.
'Celebrity naming is just about
the exposure, and about everybody hearing that name at the same time,'
Wattenberg said. 'It's not about the fame, it's about the name.'
Religion continued to have a big influence on baby names, but with a twist.
'The
traditional biblical names were New Testament names – John, James and
Mary and Elizabeth,' Wattenberg said. 'Today, the hot names are all
names from the Old testament precisely because they were neglected for
so many generations.'
In addition to Jacob and Noah, Elijah at No. 13 and Joshua at No. 14 were all from the Old Testament.
Among
the names that fell in popularity, Brisa dropped more spots than any
other – 343 places, to No. 807. Dana, Desiree and Denise also plummeted.
THE TOP FIVE NAMES FOR BABY BOYS
Jacob
Mason
William
Jayden
Noah
Brett dropped more than any other name for boys, 119 spots, to No. 508. Jamarion, Shaun and Jaydon also dropped.
Social
Security counts names with different spellings separately. For example,
Aiden was No. 9 among boys, while Aidan was No. 107 and Aaden was No.
797.
Among the girls, Sophia was No. 1 while Sofia was No. 19. Sophie
was No. 51. Zoey was No. 29 and Zoe was No. 31.
Elvis returned to
the list at No. 904, after dropping off for a year. When Elvis dropped
off the in 2010, it ended a run that had started in 1955.
Astrue, a big Elvis fan, said he was all shook up when Elvis left the list.
'Congress
may not listen to me,' Astrue said. 'But God bless the American people
for listening to me last year when I raised concerns about Elvis
dropping off.'
Were they listening to him when they named their daughters after the star of Jerseylicious
'I don't even know what that show's about,' Astrue said.