Baby names of 2018

Emma and Liam topped the lists in 2018, out of 3,517,232 births recorded across 29,704 different names. That is 1.7% fewer than the 2017 files hold. About 3.5 million of them are alive today.

← 2017 All years 2019 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Emma	18,824
2	Olivia	18,061
3	Ava	15,034
4	Isabella	14,575
5	Sophia	14,013
6	Charlotte	13,038
7	Mia	12,742
8	Amelia	12,405
9	Harper	10,646
10	Evelyn	10,433
11	Abigail	9,879
12	Emily	8,718
13	Elizabeth	8,600
14	Mila	8,169
15	Ella	8,127
16	Avery	8,099
17	Sofia	7,667
18	Camila	7,508
19	Aria	7,437
20	Scarlett	7,226
21	Victoria	7,134
22	Madison	7,103
23	Luna	6,937
24	Grace	6,789
25	Chloe	6,679

All 200 girls’ names of 2018 (18,152 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Liam	19,977
2	Noah	18,441
3	William	14,646
4	James	13,650
5	Oliver	13,500
6	Benjamin	13,488
7	Elijah	13,020
8	Lucas	12,665
9	Mason	12,526
10	Logan	12,447
11	Alexander	12,110
12	Ethan	11,931
13	Jacob	11,897
14	Michael	11,756
15	Daniel	11,296
16	Henry	10,714
17	Jackson	10,424
18	Sebastian	10,137
19	Aiden	10,062
20	Matthew	10,009
21	Samuel	9,854
22	David	9,812
23	Joseph	9,682
24	Carter	9,385
25	Owen	9,337

All 200 boys’ names of 2018 (14,118 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 2017:

Meghan #1,387 → #707 +680
Dior #1,360 → #793 +567
Palmer #1,042 → #675 +367
Adalee #1,217 → #856 +361
Oaklynn #888 → #542 +346
Haisley #1,108 → #762 +346
Novah #1,299 → #971 +328
Yara #985 → #671 +314

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 2017:

Genesis #1,575 → #981 +594
Baker #1,149 → #713 +436
Saint #1,287 → #857 +430
Kairo #802 → #483 +319
Watson #1,020 → #713 +307
Kenzo #1,175 → #876 +299
Jaxtyn #1,066 → #776 +290
Kylo #1,149 → #862 +287

Genesis 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 2018, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 2018:

Zhavia 307
Kattaleia 53
Ezlyn 50
Anifer 37
Jhavia 22
Maevery 21
Kiyanne 21
Zaviah 21
Ainoha 18
Yarishna 18

First recorded in 2018, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 2018:

Jahseh 65
Thielen 21
Daer 17
Vayu 12
Daesyn 12
Rhaegar 12
Ulugbek 12
Amell 12
Weller 11
Liano 11

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.