Emma and Noah still tops for baby names

The Spokesman-Review ^ | May 07, 2016 | Mary Clare Jalonick

[Trump20162020]

WASHINGTON – When it comes to baby names, Emma and Noah reign supreme.

For the second year in a row, Emma and Noah top the annual list of top baby names in the U.S., according to the Social Security Administration. That’s the third year on top for Noah and the second in a row for Emma, which was also No. 1 in 2008.

One major change was the girl name Isis, which had remained steadily in the middle of the pack of the country’s top 1,000 names for the past 15 years. In 2015, after the name had emerged as an acronym for the extremist group Islamic State, it dropped completely off the list.

That’s a dramatic shift, says Laura Wattenberg, baby name expert and founder of BabynameWizard.com.

“It’s actually quite rare for a name to be eliminated by issues in the news,” she says, noting that the name Adolph was still at No. 555 in the U.S. at the end of World War II when the Nazis and Adolf Hitler fell.

[T-Bone Texan]

My lame cousin in law named his two daughters, 2 years apart, "McKenzie" and "McKenna".

Yes, he is a doosh, and not creative. Those names are 100% made up, fabricated, and with no link to family past or present.

We also have acquaintances who named their daughter Denali. Please note they live in TX and have zero link to Mt. Denali - never been there, never seen it. Anyway, their next daughter comes along and they named her...wait for it....

McKinley.

Those parents are dooshes too!

I am old school. There are 2 places to look for the name of your next child, IMO: Your family tree, and the Bible.

It's all fraught with potential missteps. Heck, I have a black kitten and I proposed "Zulu", and got hateful, unsupportive glares, so I said "Well I guess Mbutu is right out, then?", in my best Monty Python voice.

[Rufii]

I adopted a calico cat who was named Tasha by her previous owner, and I kept the name. However, if I had named her, I would have chosen Ann. Although she’s very sweet, she’s strong-willed and determined to get her way, which is characteristic of girls named Ann.

[T-Bone Texan]

Thank you for saying that about Ann. We are going to have another (human, sorry) baby in about 5 weeks; it is a girl and the wife likes Ann as a middle name.

as an aside: If you want another kitten just say the word; I can overnight it to you!