Several types lately, people have said that our son’s name, Aiden, is very popular. While this may be true in some people’s small sphere of knowledge, facts don’t seem to back that up (at least not this year). The Social Security Administration’s website lists popular baby names for each year. For 2006 (the last year data is available), Aiden isn’t in the top ten. Certain baby websites put Aiden in the top of the list. What can be the cause of this discrepancy? My theory is that the people that visit these websites are of a particular socioeconomic background and therefore the list doesn’t reflect the general population. Now that children must have Social Security numbers to be claimed as a deduction on taxes, the SSA basically has all the data on the names and I trust them as a source.
We’ll see what happens when the 2007 data goes out next mother’s day.