New York City, located in southeastern New York state, is the most populous city in the United States.
In 2021, New York City welcomed 99,262 babies — 48,648 girls and 50,614 boys.
What were the most popular names among these babies? Emma and Liam.
Here are New York City’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2021:
Girl Names
- Emma, 434 baby girls
- Olivia
- Mia
- Sophia
- Leah
- Ava
- Isabella
- Amelia
- Luna
- Sofia
Boy Names
- Liam, 703 baby boys
- Noah
- Ethan
- Lucas
- Jacob
- Joseph
- David
- Daniel
- Aiden
- Benjamin
In the girls’ top 10, Luna and Sofia replaced Sarah and Chloe.
In the boys’ top 10, Benjamin replaced Alexander.
Names in the top 100 included: Grace, Lily, Violet, Aurora, Angel, Ruby, Rose, Harper, Axel, Melody, Summer, Serenity, Iris, Autumn, Jade, Chase, August, Angelina, Ivy, Eden, Goldy, Daisy, Journey, and Faith. (Genders weren’t specified, but most of these look like girl names to me.)
If you’d like to compare 2021 to earlier years, here are NYC’s 2020 rankings, and here’s a round-up of all the NYC rankings from 2019 all the way back to 1990 (plus a few from even earlier).
Source: Health Department Announces Top Baby Names in New York City
Image: Adapted from Flag of New York (public domain)
Goldy is a surprise! Goldie was #883 in the national data in 2021, but hadn’t otherwise been in the top 1000 since the 1950s. Even despite the much larger Jewish population in NYC compared to the U.S. as a whole, I never would have predicted Goldy or Goldie to have that kind of popularity. I really love it, though. Golda, too. (And while we’re at it, I also love Gilda.)
Oh I have a soft spot for Gilda. :)
Goldy is definitely more popular in NYC than it is nationally, though I think NYC’s method of ranking names (i.e., counting ties) could be exaggerating that popularity a bit.
In NYC’s 2016 data, for instance, Goldy is tied for 125th with 11 other names. If I re-rank the names using the SSA’s method (i.e., ignore ties), Goldy falls to 341st place (In fact, NYC’s “top 100” girl names of 2016 is actually a list of 172 names.)
I don’t have the complete set of data for 2021, but assume they still do things the same way.
Regardless, the name does seem to be on the rise in NYC!