Hottest baby name trends of 2015
It’s like panning for gold: We pore over the top baby names of the year (and the less common ones too) to spot the trends that are influencing name choices. This year, millennial moms and dads called the shots. Baby names inspired by YouTube celebrities, video game heroines, characters from young adult (YA) novels, and even Instagram filters are trending.
New parents are looking to the stars and planets for inspiration and embracing gender-neutral baby names in a whole new way. They're also honoring their babies with royal titles and paying tribute to one very celebrated holy man. Read on for the details.
#Instagrambabies
Lux, Juno, Reyes, Ludwig, Amaro, Valencia, Willow. Gorgeous names, right? They evoke a sense of dignified calm, a subtle nostalgia, a quiet beauty, a … popular photo-sharing app owned by Facebook?
Yes, these are all names of Instagram filters and tools that add depth, artistry, and sparkle to lackluster landscapes and washed-out selfies. And they're becoming increasingly popular names for babies.
Many new moms and dads are at home on social media and fluent in emoji, hashtags, and memes. Some wouldn't even think of posting a photo on Facebook or Instagram without some creative tweaking. So why not put those favorite filters to an even better use?
The Instagram-inspired name Lux is up 75 percent on our list of baby boy names, and it's slightly up on our list of baby girl names too. (Though technically not a filter, the photo-editing tool balances exposure, adds brightness, and makes images pop.)
One newer filter, Ludwig, jumped 42 percent on our boys' name list. Other popular filter names for boys include Amaro (up 26 percent), Reyes (up 10 percent), Hudson (up 4 percent), and Kelvin (up 3 percent).
For baby girls, the name Juno leaped 30 percent in popularity. (The Juno filter, introduced in 2015, makes outdoor photos especially gorgeous.) Valencia, which gives pictures a soft, warm glow, rose 26 percent on our girls' name list. Willow gained 13 percent.
Not every Instagram name is booming, however. Sierra, Walden, and Lark all lost ground. And some filters didn't even show up in our baby names database (yet). But don't be surprised if you meet baby Mayfair, Sutro, Rise, or Brannan in 2016. #Instagrambabies may give the #nofilter hashtag a run for its money.
All hail the royals
As Lorde sang, we'll never be royals. But we can still give our precious babies "royal" baby names.
New parents are being quite literal here. The name Royalty leaped 88 percent for girls in 2015, while Royal ascended 14 percent. Duchess jumped 75 percent on the girls' name list, Princess gained 22 percent, and Regina (Italian and Latin for queen) rose 5 percent.
Regal names exerted power over baby boy names as well. Royal gained 36 percent on the boys' name list, and Reign – which reality star Kourtney Kardashian chose for her baby boy in late 2014 – jumped 54 percent. Prince rose 10 percent. King jumped 8 percent, while both Noble and Sovereign increased 7 percent.
Parents liked royal titles from history too. On our baby boys' name list, Kaiser rose 45 percent, Sultan jumped 26 percent, and Cesar gained 16 percent. Perhaps the most surprising trending baby name is Emperor, up 12 percent. That would be an interesting one to hear on the playground: "Emperor, stop pushing! Wait your turn!"
Stolen from the teen section
Between Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, and the works of prolific authors John Green and Rainbow Rowell, it's been a good run for so-called young adult fiction and movies. (Hey, we're all reading or watching it now!)
New parents are turning to these bestsellers for baby name inspiration. Though Katniss fever appears to have peaked (it dropped 10 percent), the name Hazel – like the character Hazel Grace Lancaster in Green's The Fault in Our Stars – climbed 52 percent on our girls' name list. Eleanor – the heroine from Rowell's Eleanor & Park – is up 20 percent. And Hermione, from the good old Harry Potter series, gained 45 percent.
The names of YA authors became more popular too. Rainbow Rowell wrote three of the year's YA bestsellers, and the name Rainbow is up 30 percent for girls. John, like John Green, is up 4 percent for boys.
Other popular names lifted from the YA pages include Aysel (My Heart and Other Black Holes, up 23 percent for girls), Mia (If I Stay, up 17 percent for girls), and Frankie (The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, up 8 percent for girls).
For boys, Augustus (The Fault in Our Stars) gained 2 percent, Thomas (The Maze Runner) climbed 8 percent, Adam (If I Stay) rose 5 percent, and Jonas (The Giver) gained 5 percent.
Stars and planets align
Researchers confirmed evidence of running water on Mars and continued the search for planets capable of supporting life other than Earth. In popular culture, The Martian invited audiences to contemplate life on the Red Planet.
So it's no wonder many new parents were celestially minded. Mars didn't take off as a name for baby boys or girls, but other planetary names did. For girls, the name Venus climbed 68 percent, and Gaia (the Greek mother goddess and personification of Earth) gained 32 percent.
Other girl favorites included Soleil, the French word for sun, which jumped 28 percent, and Moon, which rose 4 percent. Cassiopeia, like the constellation, gained 5 percent in popularity.
Luna and Stella are the most popular celestial names for baby girls. Luna, the Latin word for moon, climbed 5 percent and is about to vault into the top 100 baby names for girls. Stella (Latin for star) shot up the top 100 list to spot 68 – it's one of the fastest-rising baby names of the year.
The gravitational pull of this trend was weaker for baby boys. Cosmic names didn't come close to cracking the top 100 baby names for boys. But some planets and stars are rising on the boys' name list: Jupiter jumped 50 percent in popularity, Sunny rose 43 percent, and far-out Star gained 1 percent.
Breaking gender rules
Earlier this year BabyCenter declared 2015 "The Year of the Gender-Neutral Baby," and the trend of rejecting the idea of traditional "boy" and "girl" names is still going strong. These categories have fallen by the wayside, much like boy- and girl-specific toys, careers, and hairstyles. (We're looking at you, man bun.)
Of course, parents have switched up so-called boy and girl names for ages. But there were also unspoken rules about it. Usually girls were given feminine names like Alexandra or Nicole and went by boyish nicknames (Alex or Nicky) just for fun. And once a traditionally male name (like Ashley or Leslie) took off for girls, parents generally stopped giving it to boys.
Today's parents are upending these old naming rules, ignoring gender categories, and making many popular names winners for both boys and girls. Consider Carson (up 39 percent for girls and 14 percent for boys), Amari (up 9 percent for girls and 16 percent for boys), Karter (up 45 percent for girls and 9 percent for boys), and Sawyer (up 20 percent for girls and 7 percent for boys). River, Rory, and Phoenix are other names exploding in popularity for both boys and girls.
Many new parents – including celebrity moms and dads – are even using traditionally male names for their daughters. For example, Wyatt (like the daughter of Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher) jumped 84 percent on our list of girls' names, Lincoln (like the daughter of Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard) gained 47 percent, Maxwell (like the daughter of Jessica Simpson and Eric Johnson) leaped 39 percent, and James (like the daughter of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds) climbed 13 percent.
Vice, vice baby
Becoming a parent usually means saying goodbye to partying, drinking, and debauchery. But some new moms and dads aren't ready to let go of their wild and crazy years – and they gave their babies names that suggest images of booze, drugs, gambling, and guns.
For baby boys, Bud gained 69 percent in popularity, Haze rose 62 percent, and Blaze climbed 8 percent. Diamond leaped 58 percent, Cash added 11 percent, Danger and Colt each shot up 12 percent. Miller gained 15 percent, and Wilder and Keno (the casino game) jumped 17 percent.
For baby girls, Cash jumped 46 percent, Miller gained 35 percent, Wilder jumped 4 percent, and Reno gained 4 percent. Skyy (like the vodka) rose 3 percent, Brandy added 4 percent, and Harley climbed 2 percent.
Video game heroines
More and more game players these days are also moms. (Gamers in the United States are currently 48 percent female and 31 years old on average.) And when it's time to name their baby girls, they're looking to larger-than-life women warriors from their favorite video games.
This year Joule (ReCore) climbed 52 percent, Meryl (Metal Gear Solid) jumped 51 percent, Helena (Dead or Alive, Gears of War) leaped 29 percent, and Rayne (BloodRayne) gained 26 percent. Jade (Beyond Good & Evil) gained 19 percent, Joanna (Perfect Dark) shot up 20 percent, Jill (Resident Evil) climbed 17 percent, and Kat (Gravity Rush) also jumped 15 percent.
Names of classic, iconic heroines are trending up as well: Think Yuna and Lulu from Final Fantasy, Mileena and Kitana from Mortal Kombat, and Zelda from Legend of Zelda. (Ahead of his time, the late comedian Robin Williams named his daughter after Zelda, too.)
The YouTube generation
YouTube has spawned a new crop of young, self-made stars with their own channels and devoted followers. They're often just talking about their morning routines, playing pranks, or giving advice, and they seem more like your funniest, coolest friend than like a celebrity.
Some new parents feel such a close bond that they're naming their babies after YouTube stars, like Kingsley, Cameron Dallas, and Bethany Mota.
Kingsley (the actor and comedian behind YouTube's Ask Kingsley) is up 68 percent for girls and 11 percent for boys. Cameron (YouTube star and Teen Choice Award winner Cameron Dallas), jumped 13 percent for boys and 19 percent for girls, and Dallas is up 22 percent for boys.
For boys, other trending names include Johnson (like YouTube's Ray William Johnson), Link (from Rhett & Link fame), Ian (from Smosh), and Oakley (like Tyler Oakley). For girls, Bethany (like Teen Choice Award winner Bethany Mota), Tanya (like English fashion and beauty blogger Tanya Burr), and Avia (from the Shaytards) are on their way up the popularity chart.
Newsmaker names
Some of the year's baby names were inspired by celebrities who died: R&B star Percy Sledge (who sang "When a Man Loves a Woman"), British neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, Civil Rights activist Julian Bond, and singer and TV personality Bobbi Kristina Brown.
For boys, Percy is up 79 percent in popularity, Oliver gained 52 percent, and Julian gained 9 percent. For girls, Bobbi leaped 53 percent.
Other parents were moved by Pope Francis: His message of compassion and caring drew massive crowds when he visited the United States this year, and the name Francis is up 5 percent on our list of popular names for baby boys.
Where to go next
Look up your name and see how it ranks
Awesome alternatives to popular names
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Marcella Gates is Director of Content Operations at BabyCenter, the world's number one digital parenting resource, and is an expert on pregnancy and parenting. As a mom of three, she loves that her professional life is focused on supporting and empowering parents and expecting parents. Gates lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.
