1,000 Best Baby Names for 2021

Choosing your baby’s name is one of the most fun and most challenging parts of being a new parent. When you are expecting, you may contemplate dozens of baby names, sometimes finding the perfect one right away and other times never settling on one until your child actually arrives. Luckily, each year, the Social Security Administration releases the previous year’s birth certificate data to help you see what is popular.

Knowing what others are choosing for their children can help you decide what to name your baby. Maybe you want to keep up with a more contemporary name or perhaps seeing what’s popular will help you choose something more unique. However you use this data is up to you. But it’s never not fun to troll through lists of names for potential future babies, right?

If you want to see what was popular other years, feel free to search the entire SSA database. It has over 100 years of baby name data, from 1879 onward, and it’s there for you to peruse.

Considerations When Naming Your Baby

Gender-Neutral Names

There are plenty of gender-neutral names to be considered, so don’t forget to think of them when contemplating your new baby’s moniker. In fact, you can even go “across the aisle” and choose a non-traditional gendered name for your little one. There’s no reason not to have a Lady Liam or a Master Madlyn, after all.

Shared Names

Naming your baby for a family member, friend or even fictional character can be deeply meaningful to you and/or the person you are choosing to honor. But take care with how you go about it. Some families have traditions such as designating the mother’s maiden name as their children’s middle names or keeping the first initial of every first son the same. If you choose to carry on this tradition, it can take some of the pressure off finding the perfect name, which can be appealing. Or, if you choose to buck the trend and ignore tradition, it may be more pressure as you find yourself wanting to find the perfect name to make it worth all the trouble.

If you are choosing to name your baby after someone else, family or not, be sure they are people you want to have your child associated with. There are a lot of little Khaleesis out there who will not thank their parents in a few years, after all.

Middle Names

While most accept that three names is the norm, ie first, middle and last, there’s no rule that says you have to stick to that. Many families have a tradition of multiple middle names or even double-barreled first names. You may even choose to have no middle name at all. If you can’t decide between two great names for your baby, why not keep them both?

When choosing middle names, keep in mind a few things. How do the names sound when they’re all put together? Do they flow well? Do the initals spell out anything untoward? How does the name sound with one or all of the initals plus the surname? Thinking through all of these things in advance will help you make the right decision on how to give your child the perfect name without fear you’ve made the wrong choices.

Katie Reed

Katie Reed is a passionate writer and mother of four vivacious boys from Salt Lake City, Utah. Drawing from her own journey through TTC, pregnancy, and the joys of raising children, she offers a wealth of insight into the world of motherhood. Beyond her heartfelt tales, Katie delights her readers with family-friendly recipes, engaging crafts, and a curated library of printables for both kids and adults. When she’s not penning her experiences, you’ll find her crafting memories with her husband and sons—Dexter, Daniel, Chester, and Wilder.