A recent announcement released by the NYC Health Department this past Tuesday recorded that of the approximately 100,000 babies born in the city in 2022, the most common names were Liam for boys and Emma for girls.
Liam has been the reigning most popular name in these censuses since 2016, while Emma has remained the top choice since 2017.
Records of birth certificates administered in NYC show that 99,459 children were born in 2022, with a split of about 50,595 boys and 48,864 girls.
Among all of these documented babies born in the city, 388 were noted to be Emmas, while 739 were Liams.
Other popular names that parents gave their newborns, Mia, Olivia, Sophia, and Leah rounded out the rest of the top five most common girl names. Whereas Noah, Ethan, Lucas, and David turned out to be the rest of the top five for boys.
In its announcement, the Health Department noted that if the name Sophia were to include its various spellings, such as Sofia, then it would have turned out to be number one in the ranking of girl names.
There were also several trends among parents’ choices that seemed to display a certain approach to naming their children. The Health Department stated that one of the most notable trends was something they called the reflection of an “inward look,” in which the most common names fitting into this category were Serenity (No. 82), Journey (No. 110), and Justice (No. 141). Additionally, there was another trend the department labeled as “hope for a celestial destination,” which entailed names like Heaven (No. 111) and Orion (No. 127).
As for population dispersion throughout the boroughs, the most babies were born in Manhattan (39,320), followed by Brooklyn (23,318), Queens (20,109), The Bronx (11,048), and Staten Island (5,664).
Gretchen Van Wye, the assistant commissioner of the city’s Bureau of Vital Statistics, reported to the Gothamist that, “The names are a real reflection of what’s going on for people in the most fundamental way when it comes to birth… We are seeing what parents are thinking.”
She added that the reason the department issues the statistics annually is mainly because people ask for it and enjoy it, as it generates excitement around the birth of new generations in the city, particularly during the holiday season.
