The Commonwealth of Virginia, located on the east coast of the United States, is the 12th most populous state in the country.
Last year, Virginia welcomed 95,583 babies.
What were the most popular names among these babies? Charlotte and Noah, according to the Virginia Department of Health’s Office of Vital Records.
Here are Virginia’s top 15 girl names and top 15 boy names of 2022:
Girl Names
- Charlotte
- Olivia
- Ava
- Amelia
- Emma
- Harper
- Evelyn
- Eleanor
- Sophia
- Elizabeth
- Lilly
- Abigail
- Riley
- Nora
- Chloe
Boy Names
- Noah
- James
- Liam
- William
- Henry
- Theodore
- Oliver
- Elijah
- Levi
- Benjamin
- Owen
- John
- Jack
- Asher
- Lucas
…But that’s not all!
The state also revealed the top names among the state’ four largest ethnic groups: White, Black, Hispanic and Asian. (According to the most recent CDC data, from 2020, 53.9% of Virginia’s babies were born to non-Hispanic White mothers, 20.7% to Black mothers, 15.6% to Hispanic mothers, and 7.3% to Asian mothers.)
These were the top 5 girl names and 5 boy names among Virginia’s White babies:
| Girl names, White | Boy names, White |
| 1. Charlotte 2. Olivia 3. Amelia 4. Harper 5. Emma | 1. William 2. Henry 3. James 4. Theodore 5. Oliver |
These were the top 5 girl names and 5 boy names among Virginia’s Black babies:
| Girl names, Black | Boy names, Black |
| 1. Ava 2. Naomi 3. Nova 4. Zuri 5. Leilani | 1. Noah 2. Elijah 3. Josiah 4. Amir 5. Micah |
These were the top 5 girl names and 5 boy names among Virginia’s Hispanic babies:
| Girl names, Hispanic | Boy names, Hispanic |
| 1. Mia 2. Camila 3. Isabella 4. Emma 5. Genesis | 1. Liam 2. Mateo 3. Dylan 4. Noah 5. Lucas |
And, finally, these were the top 5 girl names and 5 boy names among Virginia’s Asian babies:
| Girl names, Asian | Boy names, Asian |
| 1. Sophia 2. Chloe 3. Olivia 4. Mia 5. Charlotte | 1. Noah 2. Muhammad 3. Liam 4. Kai 5. Henry |
Nearly a decade ago we looked at Virginia’s 2013 rankings, which also included a breakdown of usage by ethnic group.
Sources:
- Virginia Department of Health’s Office of Vital Records Announces Top Fifteen Baby Names of 2022
- Births: Final Data for 2020 [PDF], National Vital Statistics Reports, vol. 70, no. 17, 7 Feb. 2022. (via Demographics of Virginia – Wikipedia)
- Virginia Department of Health’s Office of Vital Records Announces Top Baby Names of 2023
Image: Adapted from Flag of Virginia (public domain)
I’m so surprised to see that Lilly ranks higher than Lily in Virginia. I wonder what accounts for that. The accurate botanical spelling is much higher in the national data. I know Lillie was the most popular spelling in the early 20th century, probably because of the actress Lillie Langtry.
Great catch!
I suspect that “Lilly” was a typo in the news release.
The SSA’s data for Virginia indicates that Lily has been more popular than Lilly in the state over the last few years:
I think it is interesting that the Asian baby name top fives crossed over with all three other demographics, while Hispanics, Blacks and Whites had no cross over among themselves.
Yes, that is interesting!