How popular is the baby name Samantha 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 Samantha.
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Back in 1997, the western U.S. state of Colorado welcomed 56,505 babies.
What were the most popular names among these babies? Hannah and Jacob, according to data from the Health Statistics Section of Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment.
The state also revealed the top names within each of its three largest racial/ethnic groups, which it defined as “White/non-Hispanic,” “White/Hispanic,” and “Black.”
Number of babies
Top girl name
Top boy name
White/non-Hispanic
38,729 (69%)
Hannah
Jacob
White/Hispanic
12,951 (23%)
Jessica
Jose
Black
2,582 (5%)
Jasmine
Isaiah
Here are Colorado’s top 50 girl names (overall) and top 50 boy names (overall) of 1997:
Girl names
Hannah
Emily
Jessica
Sarah
Madison
Samantha
Taylor
Alexandra
Ashley
Megan
Elizabeth
Rachel
Alyssa
Alexis
Lauren
Emma
Kayla
Morgan
Amanda
Brianna
Jennifer
Jordan
Abigail
Victoria
Nicole
Brittany
Rebecca
Danielle
Katherine
Sierra
Anna
Mariah
Olivia
Amber
Sydney
Stephanie
Jasmine
Brooke
Haley
Maria
Kaitlyn
Gabrielle
Savannah
Allison
Marissa
Bailey
Courtney
Sara
Erin
Mackenzie
Boy names
Jacob
Michael
Matthew
Joshua
Austin
Tyler
Andrew
Christopher
Nicholas
Brandon
Daniel
Ryan
Joseph
Zachary
David
Alexander
Anthony
John
James
Benjamin
Kyle
Samuel
William
Justin
Jonathan
Dylan
Christian
Jordan
Cody
Robert
Nathan
Aaron
Thomas
Eric
Connor
Cameron
Jose
Noah
Adam
Logan
Isaiah
Sean
Gabriel
Caleb
Jack
Cole
Kevin
Trevor
Ethan
Ian
How do these rankings stack up against the U.S. Social Security Administration’s 1997 rankings for Colorado?
The boy names look similar, but there are two significant discrepancies among the girl names: Alexandra ranked 11 spots lower (19th vs. 8th) and Gabrielle ranked 33 spots lower (75th vs. 42nd) on the federal government’s list.
Other names bestowed in Colorado in 1997 included “Elway, Jamaica, and Mars for baby boys, and October, November, Paradise, and Rejoice for baby girls.”
Elway was no doubt inspired by John Elway, the longtime Denver Broncos quarterback who was about to lead the team to its first Super Bowl victory (in January of 1998).
Speaking of Colorado baby names with historical significance…here are posts about Denver (b. 1859), Colorado (b. 1859), Salida (b. 1881), and Silver Dollar (b. 1889).
Did you know that you can find old vital statistics reports for the City of Philadelphia on the city’s website? And that most of these reports include baby name rankings?
I don’t want you to have to comb through a bunch of PDFs to find Philly’s historical top-ten lists, though, so — just as with New York City and Austin — I gathered all of them into a single blog post.
I was able to track down eleven sets of rankings — six covering 2005 to 2010, five covering 2012 to 2016. Eight of them also happen to include total numbers of babies.
2016
The most popular baby names in Philadelphia in 2016.
Finally, because Philadelphia and New York City are relatively close to one another, I thought I’d compare/contrast the rankings above with the NYC rankings for the same years (2005 to 2016, excluding 2011).
Parents in both cities often liked the same names, but not always at the same time, or to the same degree. During the years that Kayla ranked #1 in Philly, for instance, it was already on the decline in NYC.
Here are all the names that reached the top 10 at least twice in one city, but zero times in the other city:
In 2022, the Philippines welcomed 1,455,393 babies.
What were the most popular names among these babies? Althea and Nathaniel, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
Here are the country’s top 10 girl names and top 10 boy names of 2022:
Girl names
Althea, 1,935 baby girls
Angel, 1,388
Samantha, 1,314
Princess, 1,110
Nathalie, 1,094
Chloe, 1,056
Sofia, 1,046
Zia, 984
Athena, 983
Sophia, 973
Boy names
Nathaniel, 1,956 baby boys
Jacob, 1,781
Ezekiel, 1,662
Gabriel, 1,583
Nathan, 1,557
Ethan, 1,359
Noah, 1,322
Liam, 1,198
James, 1,151
Matthew, 1,138
In the girls’ top 10, Zia and Athena replaced Andrea and Angela.
In the boys’ top 10, Noah and Liam replaced Angelo and Zion.
And which baby names saw the biggest jumps in usage?
Noah, which rose from 931 to 1,322 baby boys [2021 to 2022]
Avianna Louise, which rose from 11 to 295 baby girls [2021 to 2022]
Avianna Louise’s extreme increase must be attributable to something, though I’m not sure what.
In lieu of that, here’s some fun data from a 2017 infographic (PDF) showing how beauty queens have influenced girl names in the Philippines over the years.
In 1974 and 1994 — the first two times that the Philippines hosted the Miss Universe pageant — babies were named after both the delegate from the Philippines and the delegate who won the pageant:
Name
Delegate
Usage Increase (baby girls)
Guadalupe
Guadalupe Sanchez Miss Philippines 1974
46 to 87 [1973 to 1974]
Amparo
Amparo Muñoz (of Spain) Miss Universe 1974
127 to 689 [1973 to 1974]
Charlene
Charlene Gonzales Miss Philippines 1994
1,345 to 4,178 [1993 to 1994]
Sushmita
Sushmita Sen (of India) Miss Universe 1994
3 to 535 [1993 to 1994]
And in 1969, 1973, and 2015, the delegate from the Philippines was the winner of the pageant:
Name
Delegate
Usage increase (baby girls)
Gloria
Gloria Diaz Miss Universe 1969
3,100 to 3,413 [1968 to 1969]
Margarita or Margie (not specified)
Margarita “Margie” Moran Miss Universe 1973
1,706 to 2,351 [1972 to 1973]
Pia
Pia Wurtzbach Miss Universe 2015
621 to 925 [2015 to 2016]
A fourth Filipina, Catriona Gray, won Miss Universe (and likewise influenced baby names) in 2018.
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