Social Security officials have released their annual list of the top baby names of 2008.   Their archives go back to the year 1880 and are an excellent resource for naming trends.  Top boy names appear to be holding steady while girl names have made a slight shift.

The top ten boy names in order of popularity are Jacob, Michael, Ethan, Joshua, Daniel, Alexander, Anthony, William, Christopher and Matthew.

The most popular girl names in 2008 were Emma, Isabella, Emily, Madison, Ava, Olivia, Sophia, Abigail, Elizabeth and Chloe.

The government website allows you to easily search the archives to see the most popular names in any given year.  You can also search a specific name to find out how the name has changed in popularity over the past nine years.  We plugged in the name Chloe and found that it was number 38 on the list in 2000, and has steadily risen over the last few years, finally landing on the Top 10 list this year for the first time.

You can search the site for popular names by State, decade, popular twin names as well as the Top 5 Names over the past 100 years.

Check out the Social Security Popular Baby Names website here.

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