About & sources

Baby Names Map helps you find a name you love, using real birth records instead of guesswork. Roll a random name, filter by origin or how common it is, see how a name has risen and fallen over the years, and try it with your surname. Every number on the site comes from an official source, and every meaning says where it came from.

This site is a preview and is still being built. If something looks wrong, it is a mistake on our side, not in the records, and we want to fix it.

Sources

United States: Social Security Administration

US counts come from the SSA baby names data: national data from 1880 to 2025, state data from 1910 to 2025 and territories from 1998 to 2025. The SSA builds it from a 100% sample of Social Security card applications, as of March 2026. A name is only included if at least 5 babies of one sex got it in a year, and names have at least 2 letters. The data is public domain. Credit: U.S. Social Security Administration.

The SSA publishes counts, not ranks, so we work out US ranks from the counts. Names with the same count share a rank.

England and Wales: Office for National Statistics

Counts and ranks for England and Wales come from the ONS dataset Baby names in England and Wales, covering 1996 to 2025 (latest release 9 July 2026). Names given to 2 or fewer babies are not published. Ranks are as published by the ONS.

Scotland: National Records of Scotland

Scottish figures come from Babies’ first names by NRS, covering 1974 to 2025 (published 26 May 2026). Names given to 2 or fewer babies are not published.

The Open Government Licence v3.0 covers both UK datasets.

How often the data is updated

All three sources publish once a year: the SSA usually in spring, NRS usually in late spring and the ONS usually in summer, each covering the year before. We update the site after each new release. The latest year everywhere is currently 2025.

Origins: Wiktionary

The origin filters and origin lists use Wiktionary categories such as “English female given names from Hebrew”. We read 135 of these categories (6,764 name entries) and group them into 16 broader origins, like Hebrew, Irish & Celtic or “from a surname”. “From the Bible” uses Wiktionary’s Biblical characters category (341 pages). The categories were fetched on 1 November 2026 through the MediaWiki API. A name can have more than one origin. A name Wiktionary hasn’t tagged never appears under an origin, so we don’t guess.

Meanings, pronunciation and nicknames: Wiktionary

Meanings come from the etymology sections of Wiktionary entries. Pronunciation (IPA) and nicknames come from the same entries, and each name page links the exact revision it used. We only show a meaning when Wiktionary’s own text gives one, and we keep the revision number. When a name is listed as a form, diminutive or variant of another name, we show that name’s meaning and say so, for example “Form of Charles, meaning ‘free man’”. When Wiktionary has no clear meaning, we never make one up. Instead you may see an Editor’s note: a fact worked out only from the official counts, such as how a name’s rank changed since 2015, its US and England & Wales ranks, its girl and boy split, how rare it is, or its length. Editor’s notes never say what a name means or where it comes from. Wiktionary text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

We also tried Wikidata for name origins and didn’t use it: its “language” property lists the languages a name is used in, not where the name comes from.

Famous people: Wikidata and Wikipedia

Famous people on name pages are people whose given name is recorded in Wikidata and who have an English Wikipedia article. They are ordered by how many Wikimedia sites (mostly Wikipedia language editions) link to them. The short descriptions come from Wikidata (CC0).

What we work out ourselves

Rising names, shares of babies, “popular” and “rare” labels and the unisex split are all worked out from the counts above, and each list explains how it was made. Nothing is estimated or filled in.