WanYu Yao, Sep. 30, 2025
The Social Security Administration releases a list of the 1,000 most popular baby names in the U.S. each year to celebrate Mother’s Day.
In the most recent year, Olivia stands at the very top. It has consistently ranked within the top five throughout the past decade. But that wasn’t always the case. Back in 1980, the earliest record in the dataset, Olivia was in the 235th place.
This dataset offers a glimpse into how Olivia became the most popular girl’s name in the U.S., especially among Gen Z and younger generations, and how its prevalence varies across states.
Pew Research Center marks 1996 as a transition from Millennials to Gen Z on account of key political, economic and social factors. Gen Alpha was defined by an Australian social researcher Mark McCrindle in his publication The ABC of XYZ: Understanding the global generations as those born after 2010.
*Pew Research Center defined Gen Z as people born between 1997 to 2012, which slightly differs from Mark McCrindle’s definition.