How popular is the baby name River 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 River.
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The name Neleh first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 2002:
2004: 7 baby girls named Neleh
2003: 6 baby girls named Neleh
2002: 26 baby girls named Neleh [debut]
2001: unlisted
2000: unlisted
Where did it come from?
Neleh [pronounced nuh-LEE-uh] Dennis, a 21-year-old from Utah who was featured on the competitive reality TV show Survivor: Marquesas during the first half of 2002.
She had a “charming, sunny disposition” and was known for her frequent use of the Utah Mormon expression “Oh my heck.” Neleh made it all the way to the final episode, but ended up losing the title of Sole Survivor to fellow contestant Vecepia “Vee” Towery.
Neleh’s first name was Helen — the name of her maternal grandmother — spelled backwards. (The similar name Nevaeh, a backwards spelling of Heaven, was extremely trendy in the early 2000s.)
Following her success on Survivor, Neleh Dennis worked as a morning news reporter at Utah television station KUTV. After that, she became a stay-at-home mom. (She has two sons named Kai and River and a daughter named McKay.)
What are your thoughts on the name Neleh? How would you pronounce it?
The Massachusetts island of Nantucket, which sits about 30 miles off the coast Cape Cod, is home to over 14,000 year-round residents (though the population “swells to around 80,000 or more” during July and August).
According to the Nantucket Town Clerk’s office, a total of 158 babies were born on the island in 2023. But we only have access to the names of 108 of these babies. Why?
[B]ecause of a Massachusetts law that separates birth certificates based on the parent’s marital status. If the parents were not married at the time of the birth or the father is not named on the record, the birth certificate is considered a restricted record and is not public.
So, out of the 108 known names, which were the most popular? For girls it was a tie between Leah and Sarah (given to two babies each), and for boys it was a tie between Grayson and Lucas (also given to two babies each).
The 100 other babies were given 100 single-use names:
Tiller caught my eye — it may have come from the English surname (which originally referred to someone who tilled the soil), but, given the location, I’m hoping it was inspired by the tiller of a boat. Maybe Tiller will become the boaters’ version of Taylor/Tyler? :)
Olivia and Liam — the top names in Boston last year — are nowhere to be found on Nantucket’s list, interestingly.
Which unisex baby names were the most popular in 2022?
To figure this out, I did two things. First, I identified all the gender-neutral names in the latest batch of U.S. baby name data. (To qualify as gender-neutral, a name must be given to girls at least one-third of the time and to boys at least one-third of the time.) Second, I sorted those hundreds of gender-neutral names by total usage: male plus female.
The following names came out on top:
Parker
River
Charlie
Blake
Emerson
Finley
Phoenix
Remington
Tatum
Rory
Dakota
Ari
Shiloh
Alexis
Armani
Remy
Salem
Legacy
Skyler
Denver
The first four names — Parker, River, Charlie, and Blake — were also the top four in 2021.
The five names that entered the top 20 were Shiloh, Salem, Legacy, Skyler, and Denver. Four of the five qualified as unisex in 2021, but ranked lower on the list. Legacy, on the other hand, was slightly over two-thirds male in 2021.
The five names that dropped out of the top 20 were Hayden, Amari, Oakley, Reign, and Milan. All five failed to qualify as unisex in 2022. Hayden, Amari and Milan were given to too many boys; Oakley and Reign were given to too many girls.
Here are those top 20 names again, this time with total counts and gender percentages:
Number of babies*
Percentage girls
Percentage boys
Parker
6,243
38.49%
61.51%
River
5,379
35.55%
64.45%
Charlie
4,420
52.53%
47.47%
Blake
3,014
47.81%
52.19%
Emerson
2,975
57.61%
42.39%
Finley
2,571
52.74%
47.26%
Phoenix
2,335
43.08%
56.92%
Remington
2,217
35.14%
64.86%
Tatum
2,202
52.32%
47.68%
Rory
2,181
43.83%
56.17%
Dakota
2,137
56.34%
43.66%
Ari
1,736
41.24%
58.76%
Shiloh
1,543
59.82%
40.18%
Alexis
1,533
56.69%
43.31%
Armani
1,496
46.86%
53.14%
Remy
1,411
35.08%
64.92%
Salem
1,087
63.75%
36.25%
Legacy
1,000
65.00%
35.00%
Skyler
973
58.38%
41.62%
Denver
963
33.33%
66.67%
*Male and female usage added together
So which names came next on the list?
The following, ranked 21st through 35th, all fell within both the girls’ top 1,000 and the boys’ top 1,000 in 2022:
Briar, 924 total babies
Azariah, 903
Drew, 896
Amiri, 880
Bellamy, 847
Ocean, 842
Jamie, 841
Sevyn, 792
Dior, 745
Chandler, 719
Tru, 710
Murphy, 709
Layne, 702
Justice, 643
Robin, 637
And here are the rest of the unisex names that had a combined usage of at least 200 babies (in descending order):
Kacey was one of the few names that happened to hit 50/50 usage — exactly 202 baby girls and 202 baby boys — in 2022. Movie-fueled Marvel was another 50/50 name.
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