Names that decreased in popularity from 2020 to 2021

Girls: https://youtu.be/qVh2Qw5KSFg

Boys: https://youtu.be/WQv99sEPDsw

The thing about this is that it shows that its not some other name becoming dominant, but rather that names are becoming more distinct - fewer children born with a certain given name each year.

For example, 1997 (the last year of Michael being the most common boy name) it only had 1.88% of total births - while in 1967, Michael accounted for 4.63% of total births.

Girl name popularity changes more rapidly than boy names.

The other "this is kind of interesting" is that similar names (e.g. names that start with an L) have similar popularity.

https://namerology.com/baby-name-grapher/

You can see the "less common names are more common" with the shape of the graph there since the SSA data is only for the 1000 most common names. That the total is smaller indicates that there are more names beyond the 1000 most common that are becoming more prevalent overall.

That tool lets you clearly see that "Luke" and "Lucas" have a similar shape. Michael and Michelle (F) had a similar peak too.

Another interesting one to look at is the name "Leslie".

  “We’ll look at family history,” Montgomery said. “If someone else in the family has had a similar name that’s a key one. If their grandfather was called Prince before this law came into effect we’ll look at that and say, ‘Yes, that seems reasonable.’”

  The rule against offensive names – in the past, names like Anal and Satan have been refused in New Zealand – was to protect children. Overly long names or those that include non-letter symbols can create administrative headaches and be difficult to pronounce.

 The ban on titles and rank was about the risk those names could be used for fraudulent purposes or to mislead the public, Montgomery said.

(IIRC, there are more CEOs of large companies named John than women.)