In April of last year we reported the Top Baby Names  and trends for 2011. The social security department distributes data on births and names annually. By April they still had not released the information for 2012 so we just presented data from 2011.

We finally had a chance to dig up the data and can give you a summary for 2012 & 2013. Some congratulations are in order for Noah and Sophia for taking the number one name spots. Sophia continues her reign of the top spot for three years in a row, while Jacob got ousted from his two year stint as the champ.

Jacob has some consolation in the fact that names for boys that started with the letter J were more popular than any other letter. For girls, the letter "A" takes the cake with 17% of girl names starting with the lead letter of the alphabet. Those letters have held their respective top positions for the past three years.  So who's at the bottom of the top 1000 baby names? Augustine and Aurelia were dead last in 2012 and Darien and Collins replaced them in 2013. And the least used letters? For the past three years, without much surprise it's X for boys at .004% of names and U for girls at 0.0% of names.

It's note worthy that in the past three years not one girl name with the letter "U" has made it into the top 1000 names. What happened to Ursala? We know she is the evil queen from the Disney movie "The Little Mermaid", but aren't we far enough away from 1989 to break that spell?
 

The bottom line is that if you are looking for some really unique names, look at the end of the top 1000 names. There are lots of names that are used way less frequently and year over year vary considerably more than the top 100.

And the most popular Baby Gift? Year over year our Solid Sterling Silver Baby Cuff Bracelet takes the prize. Make it a matching set with our Full Sized Silver Personalized Cuff for mom.

Picking a name for your new baby isn't always an easy task. There are lots of factors involved when picking a baby name. Are you going to follow tradition and use a family name or break away from the masses with a unique baby name. Regardless, the one thing you should absolutely consider is what were the past and trending top baby names.

Every year we make thousands of mommy charms and mommy necklaces for new and expecting mothers. We haven't complied a formal top 10 list of baby names for 2012 but we can talk about some trends from the past year. Traditional names are making a comeback and when mom's are designing jewelry they want the full names spelled on the charms. While there will always be variations in the spelling of names, we've seen a movement away from odd or whimsical spellings and cutsie nicknames.

Naming a baby is serious business for new parents. Whether they know the sex of the baby or not, we've seen an increase in the number of parents that are waiting till the new addition arrives to finalize on a name. More so than in previous years, proud Fathers to be will order push presents for their wives in advance and without a name selected. After the baby is born, sometimes within hours, we'll get a call from an exuberant new dad ready to finalize the customization. We complete the order, sometimes shipping that same day.

There are lots of tools available to help you understand past and trending baby names.

Here are a couple tools and websites that you can use to help you select a great baby name.

1. Social Security's Website - popular baby names
   The Social Security web site provides data on baby names since 1879. You can search the data by lots of criteria to what names were popular for a previous year nationally or by state. The Social Security Department hasn't updated the data for 2012 but here is the top 10 list from 2011. If you look around the internet,you will see this baby name list repeated frequently.
   

   

   
   

   Rank	Male name	Female name
   1	Jacob	Sophia
   2	Mason	Isabella
   3	William	Emma
   4	Jayden	Olivia
   5	Noah	Ava
   6	Michael	Emily
   7	Ethan	Abigail
   8	Alexander	Madison
   9	Aiden	Mia
   10	Daniel	Chloe

   
   While the ranking of individual names is useful, the popularity of the first letter of a name could be beneficial in deciding. Using the data for the top 1000 names in a given year we can calculate the popularity of each letter. I know this is a little on the geeky side of things but here are the results I calculated from 2011.
   
   

   	Male			Female
   J	11.00%		A	16.70%
   A	8.70%		M	9.80%
   C	8.10%		K	9.60%
   M	7.30%		J	8.00%
   D	7.20%		L	7.20%
   R	6.80%		C	6.60%
   B	6.70%		S	6.10%
   K	6.60%		E	5.30%
   T	4.60%		B	4.10%
   E	4.50%		R	3.90%
   L	4.40%		D	3.00%
   S	4.00%		H	3.00%
   G	3.30%		G	2.60%
   H	2.40%		N	2.60%
   N	2.00%		T	2.50%
   P	1.90%		P	2.40%
   F	1.80%		I	1.70%
   I	1.70%		V	1.20%
   Z	1.60%		Y	1.00%
   W	1.50%		Z	1.00%
   O	1.00%		F	0.90%
   V	1.00%		W	0.40%
   Q	0.60%		O	0.20%
   Y	0.60%		Q	0.10%
   U	0.40%		X	0.10%
   X	0.40%		U	0.00%

2. Belly Ballot
   Belly Ballot helps you select your baby's name by enlisting your closest family and friends to vote on names you select. It seems like a fun way to pick a name. They track all the polls and results so they some of the most up to date top name trends on the net. Here are a few.
   
   Increasing in Popularity
   Girls: Audrey/Aubrey, Riley, Aria, Brooklyn
   Boys: Landon, Caleb, Jackson (Jaxton, Jaxon, or Jaxen), Ryder
   
   Decreasing in Popularity:
   Girls: Olivia, Makenzie, Skylar, Sophia
   Boys: Ethan, Elijah, Liam, Gage, Bentley
   
   Consistently Popular Baby Names:
   Girls: Savannah, Ava
   Boys: Michael, Noah, Owen
   
   The Belly Ballot folks also made some predictions for 2013 naming trends:
   
   1) Tech Inspired Names
   2) Multiple Names
   3) Old is New
   4) Surnames for First Names
   5) Crazy Spellings

At the end of the day if you pick the name that feels right and has meaning for you, then it is the right choice. Most of all enjoy your new bundle of joy!