Baby names of 2008

Emma and Jacob topped the lists in 2008, out of 3,931,088 births recorded across 32,546 different names. That is 1.7% fewer than the 2007 files hold. About 3.9 million of them are alive today.

← 2007 All years 2009 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Emma	18,830
2	Isabella	18,629
3	Emily	17,448
4	Olivia	17,088
5	Ava	17,051
6	Madison	17,047
7	Sophia	16,091
8	Abigail	15,088
9	Elizabeth	12,027
10	Chloe	11,836
11	Samantha	11,190
12	Addison	10,767
13	Natalie	10,201
14	Mia	10,173
15	Alexis	9,734
16	Alyssa	9,653
17	Hannah	9,577
18	Ashley	9,408
19	Ella	9,364
20	Sarah	9,055
21	Grace	9,042
22	Taylor	8,344
23	Brianna	8,278
24	Lily	8,128
25	Hailey	7,872

All 200 girls’ names of 2008 (20,482 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Jacob	22,621
2	Michael	20,652
3	Ethan	20,223
4	Joshua	19,231
5	Daniel	19,032
6	Alexander	18,711
7	Anthony	18,417
8	William	18,403
9	Christopher	17,966
10	Matthew	17,604
11	Jayden	17,167
12	Andrew	16,779
13	Joseph	16,599
14	David	16,347
15	Noah	15,808
16	Aiden	15,592
17	James	15,190
18	Ryan	14,686
19	Logan	13,861
20	John	13,336
21	Nathan	13,262
22	Elijah	13,241
23	Christian	13,069
24	Gabriel	13,041
25	Benjamin	12,958

All 200 boys’ names of 2008 (14,625 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 2007:

Dayami #10,129 → #754 +9,375
Allisson #4,944 → #420 +4,524
Alisson #1,804 → #785 +1,019
Milagros #1,579 → #728 +851
Mareli #1,530 → #723 +807
Isla #1,357 → #623 +734
Marlie #1,594 → #911 +683
Jazlene #1,409 → #833 +576

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 2007:

Urijah #3,687 → #886 +2,801
Jadiel #1,912 → #877 +1,035
Aaden #1,132 → #342 +790
Chace #1,337 → #661 +676
Marley #1,263 → #763 +500
Ishaan #1,255 → #854 +401
Yadiel #1,287 → #949 +338
Uriah #1,025 → #697 +328

Marley is here because the boys’ file records it: the SSA publishes every name given to five or more babies of one sex, and a rank is a position within that list. It is not a claim about whose name it is.

First recorded in 2008, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 2008:

First recorded in 2008, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 2008:

Yosgart 72
Kesan 32
Jometh 23
Yosgar 23
Jurem 22
Beckem 17
Korver 17
Jakayden 15
Albeiro 15
Zaidin 15

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration national baby-name files. Names given to fewer than five babies in a year are not published, so the totals here run below the true number of births. How far below is not the same in every year: the files hold 201,484 births for 1880 and 3,315,343 for 2025, so a change from one year to the next in the early decades is partly a change in what the record covers.