Need a name for a baby boy? We’ve got you.
The Social Security Administration has ranked 1,000 of the most popular baby boy names in 2022 — the most recent data available — and there are almost too many options to choose.
According to the agency, which has been assembling baby name lists since 1997, Liam has led for the past six years, while Dutton, Kayce and Chosen are among the fastest rising.
While the SSA tells TODAY.com that its next “Most Popular Baby Names” list won’t be finalized until May 2024, baby name consultant Sherri Suzanne, the founder of My Name for Life, observed several baby boy name trends over this past year.
“Parents seemed a bit more adventurous with boy names in 2023, venturing farther from tradition,” Suzanne tells TODAY.com. “It’s a departure from when people preferred boy names that fit in rather than stood out.”
Here are some top trends, according to Suzanne:
- Vintage names with a twist: “Theodore and Henry are very firmly entrenched, for example, but the goal for some parents this year was to dust off rare antiques on the brink of rediscovery,” she explains. “Thaddeus, with a timeless nickname like Tad or Tadd, rivals Theodore’s Ted.”
- Traditional names: “In theory, parents embrace gender-neutral names; in practice, parents who sought my assistance last year generally prefer their sons’ names to be recognized as (classically) male,” says Suzanne. “Nevertheless, this year, parents of boys who fell in love with neutral names,…
