The BabyCenter website has revealed the list of the most popular baby names of 2011. The list includes 100 names of girls, and 100 names of boys. The names that a generation of parents gives to their children reveals a lot about the popular culture of that year.
Genealogists may come across some unusual and unfamiliar names as they learn about their ancestors. If you dig around a little bit, you might be able to find information that helps explain where the inspiration for those names came from. This could give you a clue into the types of books, movies, or celebrities that your ancestors favored.
BabyCenter has revealed their list of the 100 most popular baby names of 2011. The list includes 100 girl’s names, and it also includes 100 boy’s names. Their data came from 300,000 parents who registered their babies birth’s on the BabyCenter website in 2011. In order to get a truer look at what the top 100 names really were, BabyCenter put names that multiple spellings together, (instead of listing each one separately).
There is an unexpected trend, of sorts, this year. The top five names for girls all end with the letter a, (and with the “ah” sound). The top five names for boys all ended with the letter n.
It is entirely possible to look at the list of the most popular baby names, and make connections between those names, and current popular culture. The number one name for baby girl’s in 2011 was Sophia. The first season of “Teen Mom” included a baby girl named Sophia. Sophia’s mother, Farrah, has been in a lot of magazines in the past year or so.
The second most popular name for baby girl’s in 2011 was Emma. There is a young actress named Emma Roberts who was in several popular movies this year. She was in “Scream 4”, and she played a major role in “The Art of Getting By”. The name Emma was also popularized by the young actress Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the “Harry Potter” series of films.
The third most popular name for girls was Isabella. I’ve no doubt that this choice was influenced by the female main character in the “Twilight” series of movies, who was named Isabella, (but went by the nickname “Bella”).
The most popular name for boys in 2011 was Aiden, (which makes it the most popular name for boys for seven years in a row). There is a band called Aiden, but, other than that, I cannot find an obvious link to popular culture for this name. Perhaps this name is popular this year simply because it has been incredibly popular for so long.
The second most popular name for boys for 2011 was Jackson. There has been a lot of news about the trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, who was Michael Jackson’s doctor. Perhaps the constant reminder of The King of Pop caused parents to decide upon this name for their sons.
The third most popular name for boy’s in 2011 was Mason. Kourtney Kardashian has a two year old son named Mason. Kim Kardashian has been in the news recently regarding her divorce. The Kardashian sisters are on a television show called “Kourtney and Kim Take New York”.
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