Year after year, news about popular and rising baby names captivate parents and non-parents alike. But the ones falling out of use get significantly less attention.
On Wednesday, the parenting website BabyCenter released a list of baby names at risk of “going extinct.” The report draws from parent-submitted data about the names they gave their newborns in 2022 and 2023 and presents the picks that saw the steepest decline within the top 500.
“I was surprised to see the name Brooke falling in popularity,” Rebekah Wahlberg, baby name trends specialist at BabyCenter, told HuffPost. “Nature-themed names are a prominent trend we’ve seen since at least 2017, and Brooke fits right in. It’s also interesting to see unique spellings of more popular names, like Charli, Raegan and Ariah, falling. Perhaps online trends of shining a comedic light on uniquely-spelled names spoiled these names for parents.”
Less surprising was the decline of formerly popular millennial names like Michelle, Amanda, and Bradley.
“It’s very normal for names popular among a generation of parents to be less popular for their children,” Wahlberg added.
It appears the era of names ending in -aden, -aiden and -ayden is also coming to a close.
“The names have been on a decline over the years,” Wahlberg said. “In the top 100 boys’ and girls’ names of last year, only one name made the cut ― Aiden ― whereas about 10 years prior in 2014, five names with that sound ― Aiden, Caden, Jayden, Brayden, Cadence ― cracked the top 100.”
Meanwhile, the alternate spelling Aidan, Raiden and Jaiden were among the names for boys with the biggest drops, further suggesting the trend has perhaps run its course. Julius, Johnny and Reid also saw dramatic declines.
“Names are also much less consolidated today than they used to be,” Wahlberg noted. “Parents are using a wider variety of names, so the biggest names are taking a smaller share of popularity. This is where classic names get affected. In fact, just the other week, I saw a name tag on a backpack for a little Livia, a unique take on the top baby name of the year for the past three years, Olivia.”
Keep scrolling for 10 baby names for girls and for boys that BabyCenter’s experts believe are at risk of going extinct and how far they dropped between 2022 and 2023. Visit the website for the full list of 80 declining names and more information about the report’s methodology.
Girls
- Brooke (down 198 spots)
- Blake (down 185 spots)
- Mckenzie (down 184 spots)
- Brooklynn (down 182 spots)
- Charli (down 179 spots)
- Raegan (down 161 spots)
- Mckenna (down 150 spots)
- Finley (down 144 spots)
- Amanda (down 131 spots)
- Michelle (down 129 spots)
Boys
- Julius (down 189 spots)
- Jaiden (down 151 spots)
- Johnny (down 150 spots)
- Raiden (down 147 spots)
- Reid (down 143 spots)
- Brady (down 114 spots)
- Nasir (down 114 spots)
- Ronan (down 104 spots)
- Bradley (down 104 spots)
- Clayton (down 102 spots)