The most common names in America today

Before the names

The result looks nothing like the birth chart. Michael leads with roughly 3.6 million living Americans, followed by James, John, David and Robert — names that sit anywhere from #6 to #92 among babies born this year, and one of which has not been fashionable since the 1930s.

It also explains a mismatch parents notice: the names that feel most ordinary in adult life are often not the ones filling nurseries. These are the names of the room, not of the crib.

The girls' side runs smaller for a structural reason the data makes plain — girls' naming turns over faster, so no women's name has ever accumulated the way Michael and James did.