According to New Jersey’s Department of Health, the most popular baby names in the state in 2015 were Isabella and Liam.
Here are New Jersey’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2015:
Girl names
- Isabella
- Olivia
- Sophia
- Emma
- Mia
- Ava
- Abigail
- Emily
- Madison
- Charlotte
Boy names
- Liam
- Michael
- Jacob
- Noah
- Mason
- Matthew
- Dylan
- Joseph
- Benjamin
- Alexander
(The SSA data agreed that Liam being New Jersey’s top boy name, but said the top girl name was actually Emma.)
In the girls’ top 10, Charlotte replaced Sofia.
In the boys’ top 10, Mason, Dylan, and Benjamin replaced Daniel, Ethan, and Anthony.
Here are NJ’s 2014 rankings.
Source: Take a look at the top N.J. baby names of 2015
Image: Adapted from Flag of New Jersey (public domain)
The SSA says there were 518 Isabellas, while the article says there were 552. What do you think accounts for the discrepancy? Did 34 Isabellas not get Social Security numbers, or did the article combine spellings? (which would explain why Isabella, Olivia, and Sophia all surpassed Emma–they have common alternative spellings, while Emma does not).
But the article also says there were 601 Liams, and SSA says 569, and I’m not thinking of many other spellings of Liam.
Oh, I looked again and I don’t think New Jersey combined spellings–they said Sofia dropped off the list. So for some other reason they are counting dozens more babies than the SSA.
I think it’s likely that some of these NJ babies just didn’t get a Social Security Number right away, and that over the next few years (as the SSNs are assigned) the SSA data for NJ will adjust to reflect this.
There could also be some discrepancy b/t the way the two regions define “first name.” For instance, while the SSA combines hyphenated names (Liam-Alexander into Liamalexander), maybe NJ counts hyphenated names separately? I don’t know if this is the case, but if it is, it could account for some of the higher numbers in NJ.