| According to the Social Security Administration that compiles a list of baby names registered with them, "Isabella" took the crown from the previous winner, "Emma," to claim the top girl baby name of 2009. "Jacob" continued his remarkable run by holding onto the top boy name for the 11th year in a row over a new number two for boys, "Ethan." New to the top 10 this year for boys are "Jayden" and "Noah," and for girls, "Mia."
The top 10 names in 2009 for boys in descending order are: Jacob, Ethan, Michael, Alexander, William, Joshua, Daniel, Jayden, Noah and Anthony. The top 10 names for girls in 2009 in descending order are: Isabella, Emma, Olivia, Sophia, Ava, Emily, Madison, Abigail, Chloe and Mia.
A favorite feature of Social Security's baby names website is the "Change in Name Popularity" page. This year's winner for the biggest jump is "Maliyah," which undoubtedly is a version of "Malia," the spelling used by President Obama's daughter, and also one of the top 10 fastest risers among girls' names. "Isla," the name of popular actress Isla Fisher (and wife of Sacha Baron Cohen -- aka Borat, which thankfully has yet to make the list) was the second fastest riser among girls.
On the boy's side, "Cullen" had the biggest increase, likely attributable to the popular character Edward Cullen in the Twilight novels and movies. "King" came in as the number three top mover for boys, but more on Elvis later.
The girl's name "Marely," which interestingly had the third largest increase last year, had the biggest drop this year from number 334 to 851. "Mylee" had the second biggest drop; "Miley" (as in Cyrus) also dropped in popularity. In the wake of controversies surrounding Lindsay Lohan, "Lindsay" dropped from number 381 to 524.
"Brett," "Jonas" and "Alvin" are among the boy's names with the largest decreases. With "Brett," Social Security wonders if Americans are ready to retire the name (sorry Vikings' fans, we mean Jets' fans, um...Packers' fans). And despite the soaring popularity of singing trios -- whether human brothers or the chipmunk variety -- fewer people apparently are willing to name their sons "Jonas" or "Alvin."
With 69 baby Baracks born in 2009, "Barack" continues to move up the list to number 1,993 from 2,424 in 2008, and 12,535 in 2007, but still lags well behind First Dog "Bo" at 782.
Many patterns of recent years continued. Religious names continue to be very popular, including the girl names "Heaven" at number 275 and "Nevaeh" (Heaven spelled backwards) at 34. "Messiah" was number 663 for boys. An extraordinary 3.7 percent of the top 1000 boy names rhymed with the word "maiden" and names associated with cities, states, or countries were popular, particularly for girls.
And for all of you Elvis fans out there, here's the annual update from Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue: Elvis slipped from number 713 in 2008 to 858 in 2009. Unconfirmed reports indicate he was "all shook up" by his 2009 rank, but pleased that "Presley" is number 268 for girls, and that "King" and "Memphis" landed at 462 and 605 respectively for boys.
As the federal government's leading expert on baby names, Astrue commented, "I have no idea what any of this means, but nonetheless urge you to go to our website to have a little fun with baby names and to see if you can help an older relative or friend qualify for $4,000 of extra help with Medicare prescription drug costs."
Since compiling a baby name list in 1997, the Social Security website has offered one for each year since 1880. The website also has catalogued the most popular baby names for each state as well as an exclusive video of Chubby Checker counting down the most popular names of the past decade.
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