How popular is the baby name Ben in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Ben.

The graph will take a few moments to load. (Don't worry, it shouldn't take 9 months!) If it's taking too long, try reloading the page.


Popularity of the baby name Ben


Posts that mention the name Ben

Popular baby names in Ireland, 2022

Flag of Ireland
Flag of Ireland

The island of Ireland, located in the North Atlantic Ocean, happens to be the third-largest island in Europe (after Great Britain and Iceland).

Last year, the Republic of Ireland — which covers five-sixths of the island — welcomed over 57,000 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Emily and Jack.

Here are Ireland’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2022:

Girl Names

  1. Emily, 349 baby girls
  2. Grace, 342
  3. Fiadh, 320 – pronounced FEE-a
  4. Sophie, 292
  5. Lily, 291
  6. Éabha, 271 – pronounced EY-va
  7. Ava, 269
  8. Mia, 262
  9. Ellie, 259
  10. Olivia, 258
  11. Amelia, 250 (tie)
  12. Emma, 250 (tie)
  13. Hannah, 248
  14. Ella, 240
  15. Freya, 234
  16. Lucy, 232
  17. Isla, 228
  18. Saoirse, 212 – pronounced SEER-sha or SAYR-sha
  19. Millie, 206
  20. Sadie, 201
  21. Sophia, 200
  22. Molly, 195
  23. Chloe, 191
  24. Caoimhe, 190 – pronounced KEE-va or KWEE-va
  25. Anna, 186
  26. Evie, 181
  27. Isabelle, 178
  28. Robyn, 177
  29. Alice, 160
  30. Aoife, 158 – pronounced EE-fa
  31. Róisín, 157 – pronounced ROH-sheen
  32. Sadhbh, 153 – pronounced siev (rhymes with the number “five”).
  33. Cara, 152
  34. Katie, 151
  35. Erin, 150
  36. Kate, 147
  37. Willow, 145
  38. Croía, 140 (3-way tie) – pronounced KREE-a
  39. Ruby, 140 (3-way tie)
  40. Sofia, 140 (3-way tie)
  41. Bonnie, 135
  42. Holly, 129 (tie)
  43. Zoe, 129 (tie)
  44. Sienna, 126
  45. Isabella, 125 (tie)
  46. Maya, 125 (tie)
  47. Sarah, 121
  48. Ada, 119
  49. Rosie, 111
  50. Leah, 109

Boy Names

  1. Jack, 641 baby boys
  2. Noah, 485
  3. James, 412
  4. Rían, 372
  5. Charlie, 348
  6. Oisín, 340 – pronounced UH-sheen or OH-sheen
  7. Tadhg, 324 – pronounced tieg (like the first three letters of “tiger”)
  8. Liam, 323
  9. Cillian, 316 – pronounced KIL-ee-an
  10. Daniel, 303
  11. Fionn, 287
  12. Michael, 278
  13. Conor, 275
  14. Finn, 269
  15. Patrick, 250
  16. Thomas, 246
  17. Darragh, 245
  18. Harry, 242
  19. Seán, 239
  20. Luke, 233
  21. Theo, 232
  22. Adam, 230
  23. Leo, 225
  24. Alex, 216
  25. Oliver, 201
  26. Ryan, 190
  27. Max, 189
  28. Cian, 185 – pronounced KEE-an or keen
  29. Tommy, 184
  30. Luca, 179
  31. Bobby, 170
  32. Mason, 167
  33. Dylan, 163 (3-way tie)
  34. Jamie, 163 (3-way tie)
  35. Kai, 163 (3-way tie)
  36. John, 160
  37. Ollie, 159
  38. Oscar, 156
  39. Shay, 152
  40. Alexander, 149 (tie)
  41. Ben, 149 (tie)
  42. Matthew, 146
  43. David, 143 (tie)
  44. Tom, 143 (tie)
  45. Ethan, 141
  46. Donnacha, 140 – pronounced DUN-uh-ka or DUN-uh-kha (the kh represents a guttural H-sound)
  47. Alfie, 139
  48. Jacob, 131
  49. Billy, 128
  50. Sam, 125

New to the girls’ top 100 were the names Hailey, Phoebe, Ayda, and Éala.

New to the boys’ top 100 were the names Blake and Cody.

The fastest-rising names in the top 100 in terms of numbers of babies were:

  • Millie (+58 baby girls), Olivia (+39), Éala (+32), Ellie (+31), Isabelle (+31)
  • Luca (+58 baby boys), Oisín (+38), Leo (+33), Kai (+33), Tomás (+30)

The fastest-rising names in terms of rank were:

  • Éala (+86 places), Phoebe (+45), Mary (+40), Hailey (+38), Ayda (+29)
  • Tomás (+42 places), Anthony (+31), Christopher (+29), Joey (+25), Kayden (+25)
Map of the four provinces of Ireland
Ireland’s four provinces

Home to more than five million people, the Republic of Ireland is divided into four provinces. (One of these provinces, Ulster, lies largely within Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK.) The top baby names within each of the four provinces last year were…

Top Girl NameTop Boy Name
Leinster
(56% of the population)
EmilyJack
Munster
(27% of pop.)
EmilyJack
Connacht
(11% of pop.)
ÉabhaJack
Ulster [ROI portion]
(6% of pop.)
GraceJack

And what about the names at the other end of the spectrum? The following were given to just 3 babies each in Ireland last year:

Rare Girl NamesRare Boy Names
Ananya, Beatriz, Cliona, Dina, Eilidh, Faela, Fianna, Isadora, Joan, Khadija, Líadh, Luisne, Miruna, Morrigan, Nala, Orlagh, Prunelle, Réiltín, Saffie, Scotia, Tilda, Vamika, ZohaAilbe, Brooklyn, Caoilte, Denzel, Eamonn, Féidhlim, Geoffrey, Henrik, Isa, Josiah, Kamal, Lúan, Manus, Nilan, Ógie, Pio, Rokas, Séadhna, Tiernán, Viraj, Wayne, Yousuf, Zoraiz

Finally, here are Ireland’s 2021 rankings, if you’d like to compare last year to the year before.

P.S. If you’re interested in seeing more Irish name pronunciations, just click that link.

Sources: Irish Babies’ Names – CSO (Irish Babies’ Names 2022), Births, Deaths and Marriages – CSO (Vital Statistics Yearly Summary 2022), Data – CSO, Provinces of Ireland – Wikipedia

Image: Adapted from Flag of Ireland (public domain)
Map: Adapted from Provinces of Ireland location map by Ssolbergj under CC BY-SA 4.0.

[Latest update: Feb. 2024]

Name quotes #113: Oscar, Mackenzie, Miro

double quotation mark

It’s time for another batch of name quotes!

From a recent Daily Mirror article about schoolteachers Lainey Clarke and Ben Hubbard, who live in Buckinghamshire with their newborn…plus two spirits named Dave and Andy:

Dave even helped them when it came to deciding baby names.

“Every name we liked we’d then remember a naughty school kid we’d taught — it was a nightmare,” laughs Ben.

“We did a spirit box session [one person asks questions and another sits blindfolded with headphones on and relays messages from the spirit world] and the word Apollo was spoken. We listened back after he was born and were stunned to find that Dave had named our baby.”

From a Today.com article published earlier this year about like-named twins who married like-named twins:

Identical twins Briana and Brittany, 35, married identical twins Josh [Joshua] and Jeremy Salyers, 37, and now they’re introducing the world to their babies, who are so genetically similar that the cousins are more like brothers.

[…]

The Salyers are parents to Jett, who turned 1 in January, and Jax, who will turn 1 in April, and the cousins share more than the same first initial. Their unique situation makes them genetic brothers.

(Many U.S twins born in the early 2000s were also given similar names.)

From a recent Morley Kert woodworking video, part of a discussion between Morley and a male client named Mackenzie who he’d just met in-person:

Morley: “So I have something I need to tell you.”

Mackenzie: “Oh?”

Morley: “I fully assumed from your name that you were female.”

Mackenzie: “I think a lot of people do. Technically, technically, 52% of Mackenzies are female now. Which is — we’re losing the battle.”

(I’m curious where Mackenzie found that number, because the balance between male and female babies named Mackenzie hasn’t been close to 50% since the mid-1970s.)

Graph of the usage of the baby name Mackenzie in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Mackenzie

From a 2008 Jezebel post about about celebrity baby names:

To try to find out if celebrity kids can outrun their ridiculous names, MSNBC turns to Peaches Geldof, the celebutante who, in 2006, claimed, “I hate ridiculous names, My weird name has haunted me all my life.” Apparently, Peaches has made peace with her wacky moniker over the past few years, recently telling a reporter “It haunted me in my youth, but now I like it. I always got teased about it at primary school, being named after a fruit. Now people find it appealing. I like my name. I think it’s sexy and unusual.”

From the 2004 article “A Real Gem: Pop artist Ruby Mazur leads charmed life in LV” in the Las Vegas Sun:

Classic rock is pouring through Mazur’s spacious home, his 250-pound Newfoundland, Zeus, is circling the commotion and the artist’s 16-year-old twin sons, Cezanne and Miro, visiting from Vienna, are glancing over with a smile.

[…]

Now living in the golfing community of Rhodes Ranch, Mazur can sit back and scan his past and future. Two of his children — 18-year-old son Matisse and his daughter, actress and model Monet Mazur — are grown.

[Mazur, whose children are named after four famous artists — just like the Ninja Turtles, coincidentally — designed the cover art for thousands of albums during the 1970s.]

From a 2015 article about Anglo-Saxon personal names in History Today:

In the century before the Conquest, Scandinavian names had become so common in some areas that, not only had names such as Toki and Gyða been incorporated into the naming stock, but hybrid names had developed, creating truly Anglo-Scandinavian names, like Ælfcytel (combining Old English Ælf-, ‘elf’, and Old Norse -kettill, ‘cauldron’).

[This source also made an appearance in quotes #110.]

A name-change story (contributed by a Texas woman named Melanie) from a recent Washington Post article about changing babies’ names:

We named our second daughter Francisca. We called to tell my parents. My mother, who sounded disappointed, asked, “What was your second choice?” We told her Amelia. Mom told us that Amelia was her mother’s sister’s name. We said that was nice and moved on to calling other relatives. When we called my sister in law and told her we named our daughter Francisca, she said, “That’s funny, I had a dream you named the baby Amelia.” So right then the baby’s name was changed to Amelia.

For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.

What gave the baby name Jacy a nudge in the early 1970s?

The character Jacy Farrow (played by Cybill Shepherd) from the movie "The Last Picture Show" (1971).
Jacy Farrow from “The Last Picture Show”

The name Jacy, which had been in the U.S. baby name data since the early ’60s, saw a modest jump in usage in 1972:

  • 1974: 47 baby girls named Jacy
  • 1973: 36 baby girls named Jacy
  • 1972: 25 baby girls named Jacy
  • 1971: 9 baby girls named Jacy
  • 1970: 7 baby girls named Jacy

Why?

Because of the coming-of-age film The Last Picture Show, which was released in October of 1971.

The film, shot in black-and-white upon the advice of Orson Welles, was set in north Texas in the early 1950s. One of the main characters was Jacy Farrow (played by Cybill Shepherd), who was both the prettiest and the wealthiest girl in the small town of Anarene.

The Last Picture Show was one of the highest-grossing films of 1971, and ended up with eight Oscar nominations (and two wins — for supporting actor Ben Johnson and supporting actress Cloris Leachman).

The movie was based on the 1966 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry, who was also the writer behind the movie Hud.

The name Jacy saw another rise in usage in the early 1990s, possibly because The Last Picture Show‘s sequel, Texasville, came out in mid-1990.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Jacy?

Sources: The Last Picture Show – Wikipedia, AFI Catalog Spotlight: The Last Picture Show, SSA

Popular baby names in Switzerland, 2021

Flag of Switzerland
Flag of Switzerland

Last year, the country of Switzerland welcomed 89,644 babies.

What were the most popular names among these babies? Mia and Noah.

Here are Switzerland’s top 50 girl names and top 50 boy names of 2021:

Girl Names

  1. Mia, 467 baby girls
  2. Emma, 416
  3. Elena, 322
  4. Lina, 315
  5. Mila, 307
  6. Emilia, 303
  7. Sofia, 298
  8. Olivia, 279
  9. Nora, 270
  10. Alina, 260
  11. Anna, 259
  12. Lea, 256
  13. Lia, 255
  14. Lara, 251
  15. Lena, 243
  16. Julia, 241
  17. Ella, 240
  18. Elin, 238
  19. Laura, 233
  20. Malea, 231
  21. Nina, 225
  22. Leonie, 220
  23. Giulia, 213
  24. Sophia, 211
  25. Chiara, 208
  26. Alice, 203
  27. Elina, 197 (tie)
  28. Valentina, 197 (tie)
  29. Luna, 195
  30. Luana, 193
  31. Livia, 191
  32. Sara, 187 (tie)
  33. Sophie, 187 (tie)
  34. Yara, 176
  35. Eva, 174
  36. Emily, 171
  37. Aurora, 170
  38. Amelia, 167
  39. Ava, 160 (3-way tie)
  40. Juna, 160 (3-way tie)
  41. Zoé, 160 (3-way tie)
  42. Elisa, 155
  43. Alea, 147
  44. Melina, 146 (tie)
  45. Victoria, 146 (tie)
  46. Jana, 144
  47. Hana, 141
  48. Maria, 140
  49. Mara, 137
  50. Charlotte, 136

Boy Names

  1. Noah, 559 baby boys
  2. Liam, 391
  3. Matteo, 385
  4. Luca, 368
  5. Gabriel, 327
  6. Leon, 315
  7. Elias, 303
  8. Louis, 272
  9. Lio, 270
  10. Nino, 258
  11. Leo, 256
  12. Leonardo, 248
  13. Samuel, 243
  14. Leano, 229
  15. Ben, 227
  16. David, 226
  17. Julian, 218
  18. Diego, 206
  19. Aaron, 204 (tie)
  20. Elia, 204 (tie)
  21. Lian, 201
  22. Levi, 199
  23. Finn, 197
  24. Nico, 192
  25. Robin, 185
  26. Elio, 183 (tie)
  27. Mateo, 183 (tie)
  28. Malik, 179
  29. Levin, 178
  30. Arthur, 177
  31. Tim, 176
  32. Luan, 175
  33. Alessio, 170 (tie)
  34. Jonas, 170 (tie)
  35. Nael, 169
  36. Adam, 168
  37. Lenny, 162
  38. Dario, 159
  39. Benjamin, 157 (tie)
  40. Milo, 157 (tie)
  41. Laurin, 156
  42. Leandro, 154
  43. Emil, 153
  44. Lucas, 152
  45. Noé, 148
  46. Luis, 147
  47. Alexander, 146
  48. Mattia, 144 (tie)
  49. Nathan, 144 (tie)
  50. Gian, 143 (tie)
  51. Jan, 143 (tie)

Home to more than 8.5 million people, Switzerland has four national languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh. Here are the top baby names among the speakers of each of these languages:

Girl NamesBoy Names
German speakers
(62.3% of the population)
1. Mia, 343
2. Emilia, 277
3. Emma, 272
4. Lina, 261
5. Elena, 256
1. Noah, 385
2. Matteo, 293
3. Luca, 288
4. Leon, 287
5. Lio, 266
French speakers
(22.8% of pop.)
1. Emma, 125
2. Alice, 108
3. Olivia, 104
4. Mia, 95
5. Eva, 93
1. Gabriel, 165
2. Noah, 149
3. Liam, 139
4. Arthur, 116
5. Lucas, 98
Italian speakers
(8.0% of pop.)
1. Sofia, 30
2. Mia, 26
3. Noemi, 24
4. Alice, 23
5. Aurora, 22
1. Leonardo, 44
2. Alessandro, 30
3. Liam, 24
4. Noah, 23
5. Tommaso, 20
Romansh speakers
(0.5% of pop.)
1. Luana/Mia/Nora, 3 (tie)
2. Andrina/Anuk/Bigna/Melody/Valentina, 2 (tie)
1. Luca/Lucas/Manuel/Nico, 3 (tie)
2. Andrin/Elio/Fabio/Flurin/Jon/Leon/Noah/Valerio, 2 (tie)

And here’s a selection of names from the other end of the spectrum — names that were given to just 2 babies each in Switzerland in 2021:

Rare Girl Names Rare Boy Names
Annigna, Bignia, Cinzia, Dragana, Eirini, Flutra, Gresa, Hermine, Ishana, Jonida, Kari, Lamia, Milijana, Nangsel, Orela, Philia, Rialda, Sidona, Tylia, Umay, Vilja, Yua, ZayleeAtréju, Boiken, Cuno, Dorijan, Elvedin, Floki, Gionatan, Hristijan, Iori, Jasha, Klodian, Lendrit, Maurizio, Namkha, Orik, Pieter, Roland, Senna, Toivo, Urs, Viliam, Ylano, Zejn

Finally, here’s a link to Switzerland’s 2020 rankings, if you’d like to compare last year to the year before.

Sources: Prénoms des nouveau-nés – Office fédéral de la statistique, Languages of Switzerland – Wikipedia

Image: Adapted from Flag of Switzerland (public domain)