Most popular baby names of the decade: Emma and Noah top the list

Noah and Emma take the cake for the 2010s, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration's recently released top baby names for the decade.

More than 163,000 baby boys were named Noah this decade, which moved the biblical name up 19 spots from the previous decade. The name Emma already was wildly popular in the 2000s when it was the third most popular girls' name. More than 177,000 girls born in since 2010 have been named Emma.

The remainder of the top-5, most-popular boys' names are Liam, Jacob, Mason, and William. Among girls, Sophia, Olivia, Isabella, and Ava round out the five most popular.

On the boys' names list, William has never left the Top 20 since 1900. Liam jumped in popularity this decade, starting at No. 30 in 2010 before reaching the top spot in 2017 and 2018. Mason is another 2010s success story, positioned at No. 48 in the 2000s before reaching the No. 2 spot in 2011 and 2012. The name has stayed in the Top 10 throughout the decade.

Emma' popularity has risen since the 1990s, taking the top spot for the second half of the decade, from 2014-2018. Growing in popularity in the 2000s, Sophia was most popular from 2011-2013, while Olivia, Isabella, and Ava have held positions in the top 10 since the mid-2000s.

The administration reported 18.1 million male babies and 17.3 female babies were born this decade. Compare that to the 2000s when 21.3 million male babies and 20.3 million female babies were born.

This is inline with U.S. birthrate statistics. The number of births in the U.S. dropped for the fourth year in a row in 2018, falling to a 32-year low, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2018, 3.8 million babies were born, which was a 2% drop from 2017.

Birthrates fell across almost all racial and age groups — except for women in their late 30s and early 40s, where there was a rise in birth rates. Women are also having babies later, in general. In 2017, for the first time ever, the number of women giving birth in their early 30s surpassed the number who had children in their 20s, and that margin widened in 2018.

Below are the Top 20 baby names, for boys and girls for the 2010s, according the Social Security Administration.

Most popular baby names of the 2010s: Emma and Noah top the list

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