American babies were given 29,910 distinct names last year. Of those, 1,100 were brand-new ones that hadn’t appeared in the data before 2017, new data on American baby names shows.
The biggest new name is Camreigh, which was given to 91 babies last year, even though it didn’t show up at all in 2016. Camreigh follows the increasingly common practice to replace hard “e” sounds with the “eigh” cluster, as in Ashley/Ashleigh and Riley/Ryleigh. The traditional spelling, “Camry,” has been around for a while, with 113 baby Camrys born in 1997.
Data on baby names is collected by the US Social Security Administration, and only contains records for names given to five or more babies, so it’s possible that a few other Camreighs existed prior to 2016.
The next two names on the list of most popular new names appear to be taken from internet celebrities. The first is Asahd, with 58 babies. It’s an unconventional spelling of the Arabic name Asad, given by DJ Khaled—one of those people who does a lot of stuff on social media and is famous—to his newborn son in 2016. (Khaled is also trademarking the name, it seems.) After Asahd is Taishmara, with 38 babies, presumably taken from Taishmara Rivera, who has a lot of Instagram followers.
Non-English names are also being newly introduced to the US. The Nigerian name Iretomiwa entered the dataset for the first time. As did Tewodros, the Ethiopian variation of the Greek name “Theodore.”
Finally there is Cersei. You read that right: 11 fresh-faced, sinless babies were named after the manipulative, power-hungry, incestuous, helicopter parent-y, backstabbing character from Game of Thrones.
Here are the top new names. To keep the list short, we have only included those given to eight or more newborns last year. Enjoy.