Arizona Baby Names

Do you know anyone named Michael? John? Mary? Robert? Linda? Of course you do! These are some of the most popular names that people have given to their children, according to the Social Security Administration which has been tracking baby names since 1920. The names John, James and Robert were dominant for many years. For boys, though, the name Michael has definitely been the most popular in the past 40 years, being ranked number one for most of those years. For little girls the name Mary was clearly the winner for the first 40 years that records like this have been kept, but since then there has been no clear favorite name for baby girls that has dominated over time.

The latest available records about baby names comes from 1998 actuarial records. They were compiled by Michael Shackleford of the Social Security Administration Office of the Chief Actuary . The records are obtained from Social Security Card applications. Keep in mind that the list does not account for variations of spellings. For instance, "Kellie" and "Kelly" are considered as two separate and distinct names.

Here are the ten most popular baby names for Arizonans as of 2000:

Top Five Male Baby Names in Arizona

1. Jacob
2. Michael
3. Daniel
4. José
5. Joshua

Top Five Female Baby Names in Arizona

1. Emily
2. Samantha
3. Ashley
4. Alexis
5. Jessica

Nine of these ten names (José is the exception) also appear in the list of the most popular names for births nationally.

Most Popular Names for Births in 2000
	Male		Female
Rank	Name	Number	Name	Number
1	Jacob	33957	Emily	25714
2	Michael	31933	Hannah	22779
3	Matthew	28185	Madison	19717
4	Joshua	27399	Ashley	17850
5	Christopher	24962	Sarah	17398
6	Nicholas	24356	Alexis	17386
7	Andrew	23337	Samantha	17092
8	Joseph	22661	Jessica	15509
9	Daniel	22124	Taylor	14905
10	Tyler	21251	Elizabeth	14866