Bible Names Mega-Popular on Baby Names List

Jacob and Isabella are king and queen of the crib again this year.

This is the 12th year in a row on the Social Security Administration list of popular baby names the biblical name Jacob has ranked supreme—and the second for Isabella.

The only new name to crawl into the top 10 on either list this year is Aiden, which replaces Joshua on the boys’ side. But the overarching theme on this year’s list is indeed Bible names. Here are the top 10 boys and girls names for 2010:

Boys (in ranking order from one to 10): Jacob, Ethan, Michael, Jayden, William, Alexander, Noah, Daniel, Aden, and Anthony.

Girls (in ranking order from one to 10): Isabella, Sophia, Olivia, Ava, Emily, Abigail, Madison, Chloe, and Mia.

But for all the Bible names on the list, there is another disturbing trend: vampire movie star names continued ranking high for new babies. If you remember last year’s baby name craze around the “Twilight” novels and movies, it should come as no surprise that “Twilight” scores again this year.

The second fastest riser on the boys’ list is Kellan, the name of actor Kellan Lutz, best known for playing Emmett Cullen in the “Twilight” series.  Coming in third is Knox, one of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s toddler twins. On the girls’ side, Tiana, the name of the main character in the Disney movie, “The Princess and the Frog” and Disney’s first African-American princess, is one of the biggest chart hoppers.

A recent trend in the top girls’ names is a return to names that were popular in the early to mid-1900s. Names like Isabella, Ava, and Chloe, which had disappeared almost completely from the top 1,000 girls’ names, have surged in popularity in recent years, which suggests a trend in naming newborn girls after their grandmothers. 

And guess what? Elvis has left the building. Quicker than you can eat a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, Elvis slipped out of the top 1,000 for the first time since 1954.

If you recently had a baby, how did you decide on the name?