Last year, New York City welcomed 98,389 babies.
What were the most popular names among these babies? Emma (for the seventh year in a row) and Liam (for the eighth year in a row), according to the New York City Health Department.
Here are NYC’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2023:
Girl names
- Emma, 382 baby girls
- Mia
- Sophia
- Olivia
- Isabella
- Amelia
- Leah (ranked 53rd for girls nationally in 2023)
- Chloe (26th)
- Luna
- Sofia (12th)
Boy names
- Liam, 743 baby boys
- Noah
- David (ranked 27th for boys nationally in 2023)
- Lucas
- Jacob (36th)
- Ethan (25th)
- Joseph (29th)
- Dylan (34th)
- Michael [tie] (16th)
- Muhammad [tie] (272nd)
In the girls’ top 10, Chloe and Sofia replaced Ava and Esther.
In the boys’ top 10, Dylan, Michael, and Muhammad replaced Aiden, Daniel, and Alexander.
Both Dylan and Muhammad — which was the #1 boy name in England and Wales last year — are new to NYC’s top 10. Michael, on the other hand, was a “favorite among New Yorkers from 1980 to 2006.”
The Health Department’s press release also mentioned dozens of other Big Apple baby names, including…
| Girl names | Boy names |
| Esther (ranked 12th), Miriam (15th), Aurora (41st), Violet (45th), Rose (52nd), Eleanor (56th), Gemma (78th), Athena (79th), Savannah (85th), Iris (87th), Daisy (93rd), Sage (100th) | Alexander (ranked 17th), Zion (62nd), Leonardo (65th), Milan (70th), Adonis (76th), Amari (78th) |
Finally, here’s a link to New York City’s 2022 rankings, if you’d like to check them out.
Sources:
- Health Department Announces Top Baby Names in New York City – NYC Health
- Donlevy, Katherine. “These are the top baby names in NYC in 2023: Did yours make the list?” New York Post 27 Dec. 2024.
Image: Adapted from Flag of New York (public domain)
Man, I always forget how hideous our city flag is.
Michael, on the other hand, was a “favorite among New Yorkers from 1980 to 2006.”
There were three (and for a few months, four) in my elementary school classroom.
Also, the real reason I’m commenting, you can – at least until the end of next month – find NYC baby names sorted by ethnicity. That’s a terrible webpage, they’ve definitely had a better one before, but damn if I can find it.
David, Esther, Leah, and Miriam are so nice. People in NYC have better taste than the country at large (or maybe it’s just because orthodox Jews use biblical names).
I played around with the page mentioned by C. Baker, unfortunateley the last birth year covered is 2021.
@C Baker – So many state flags are just…meh. I’m happy that a few states (like Utah & Mississippi) have totally redesigned their flags recently. Maybe this will inspire New Yorkers to follow suit…?
Thank you for that link! I’ve tried archiving the page via the Wayback Machine in the last few days, but my copies are pretty broken. There does seem to be at least one functional copy, so that’s good, though its export button doesn’t seem to work.
I’ve also seen a lot of that data in PDF format, e.g., popular NYC girl names by ethnicity, 2016; popular NYC boy names by ethnicity, 2012.
I’ve been meaning to write about the NYC ethnicity data (and thereby preserve it somewhere) for a while now, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
@Sharky – Yes, I think it’s primarily the Jewish influence. :)
@elbowin – Right. I love the Open Data movement, but a lot of the baby name datasets I’ve seen just never get updated. And several have been taken offline, which is frustrating.