Why Jennifer, Brittany and Michael disappeared from baby-name lists

In most of America, naming a baby John in 2025 is decidedly old-school. In Alabama, it was the most popular choice for boys. That one little fact says a lot about how baby names really die.

They usually don’t vanish from the country all at once. Instead, they retreat. A name that suddenly sounds dated in California or Massachusetts may remain completely normal in Mississippi, Alabama or West Virginia. Another may disappear from the South while hanging on in New England. The result is a kind of hidden map of American taste.

The Social Security Administration’s state-by-state baby-name records make those regional holdouts surprisingly easy to see. When you compare names across several decades, the story is much more interesting than simply asking which name was No. 1 nationally.

John is old-fashioned almost everywhere—except where it isn’t

The national boys’ list in 2025 was dominated by Liam, Noah, Oliver, Theodore and Henry. John didn’t make the national top 10. But look south and the picture changes dramatically.

In Alabama, John was the No. 1 boys’ name in 2025. In Mississippi, it was No. 3. In Louisiana, it was No. 5. James and William show a similar pattern. Both are old names, but unlike many once-dominant names, they never fully disappeared. In 2025, James and William remained especially strong across parts of the South, with both showing up repeatedly among the top five in states including Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and the Carolinas.

That doesn’t mean southern parents are stuck in the past. Liam, Noah and Elijah are popular there too. It means some older names maintained a regional life alongside newer favorites instead of being completely replaced. The 2025 state lists from Social Security show just how different the same year’s naming landscape can look from one state to another.

Brittany didn’t fade everywhere at the same speed

Girls’ names often show an even sharper boom-and-bust pattern. By the 1990s, Brittany was unmistakably a name of its moment. But even as the national tide began turning toward Emily, Jessica, Ashley and eventually Emma and Olivia, Brittany still had extraordinary staying power in a band of states.

In 1995, Brittany was the No. 1 girls’ name in West Virginia. It remained among the top five in Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Meanwhile, it wasn’t even in the top five in places such as California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut or Washington.

Same country, same year, very different naming cultures. The Social Security Administration’s 1995 state data captures the split almost perfectly.

Jennifer conquered America—and then retreated west

Few girls’ names ever dominated a decade as completely as Jennifer. During the 1970s, parents gave the name Jennifer to more than 580,000 baby girls, making it the most popular girls’ name of the entire decade by a huge margin, according to Social Security’s decade-by-decade records.

By 1995, though, the Jennifer era was clearly ending. Most states had moved on to Jessica, Ashley, Emily, Taylor, Samantha and other names. California hadn’t completely let go.

Jennifer was still the fourth-most-popular girls’ name in California in 1995, even though it had disappeared from the top five in almost every other state. That is what a fading name often looks like in real life. It doesn’t fall off a cliff. It develops holdouts.

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Amanda had an even stranger goodbye

Amanda was the third-most-popular girls’ name of the entire 1980s, behind Jessica and Jennifer. For parents of that era, it was everywhere. By 1995, it had largely vanished from state top-five lists, but not completely.

Amanda was still among the five most popular girls’ names in places as different as New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island and Wyoming. There isn’t an obvious single regional explanation, and that’s part of what makes baby-name geography fun. Sometimes a name survives in a clear cultural region. Sometimes it leaves behind scattered pockets. Names don’t spread—or disappear—according to state borders with military precision.

Then there is Michael, the name America could barely quit

Michael may be the ultimate example of staying power. It was the most popular boys’ name of the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s. Across the last century, Social Security says Michael has been America’s No. 1 boys’ name more often than any other name—44 times.

By the 2020s, Michael had finally lost its almost supernatural grip on the top of the charts. Yet it still wasn’t gone. Across 2020 through 2025, Michael remained the 16th-most-popular boys’ name nationally. As recently as 2024, Michael was still among New Jersey’s five most popular names for boys.

Compare that with names such as Jason, Scott or Jeffrey—massive names in earlier decades that now barely register near the top—and Michael begins to look less like a trend and more like an institution.

Today’s “grandparent name” could be tomorrow’s comeback

There is another twist hiding in the current lists: Americans don’t simply abandon old names. Sometimes they resurrect them. Theodore, Henry, Charlotte, Eleanor and Evelyn would have sounded thoroughly old-fashioned to many parents a generation or two ago. Today they are fashionable again.

In 2025, Theodore ranked fourth nationally for boys and Henry fifth. Charlotte ranked second for girls. So a name falling out of fashion is not necessarily dying. It may just be entering storage. That is one reason today’s babies can end up sharing names with great-grandparents more often than with their parents.

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Your name can reveal your generation—and sometimes your geography

A room full of Lisas, Susans and Karens probably doesn’t contain many toddlers. A kindergarten class filled with Olivias, Charlottes and Liams probably doesn’t contain many children born in 1975. But state data adds another layer.

A Brittany born in West Virginia in the mid-1990s was growing up where her name still sat at the very top of the chart. A Brittany born at the same time in Massachusetts was already carrying a name that local parents were moving away from.

Baby names are personal choices, but millions of those choices taken together become cultural history. Sometimes you can watch that history move across a map—one Jennifer, Brittany, Michael and John at a time.

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