Emma and Noah may be Pennsylvania’s most popular baby names of 2016, but Benjamin, much like his NFL namesake Ben Roethlisberger, won’t go down without a fight.
According to name-tracking data from the Social Security Administration, Benjamin is currently the No. 4 most popular baby name in the Keystone State and No. 6 nationally on 2016’s list.
“As you know, Steelers nation is all over the country,” said Elaine Cole, SSA spokeswoman for Pennsylvania. “We’d like to believe Benjamin is far up the ladder because we have Big Ben in Pittsburgh.”
Of course, not every Ben in Pennsylvania and throughout the country is named after the Steelers quarterback. Exhibit A: Lisa Graper, 58, the director of nursing at West Penn Hospital, where she has worked since 1987.
She named her son Ben, “but it wasn’t related to Ben Roethlisberger,” she said. In her experience as a nurse, Ben has been “a pretty consistent name” for 30 years.
Even though Graper’s son was not named after a Pittsburgh professional athlete, she said she sees new parents often going that route when naming their children.
“We’ve certainly seen some Sidneys, both for boys and girls,” she said, referencing Penguins star Sidney Crosby.
Local sports figures are one of many factors that can contribute to the life cycle of baby name popularity.
“I think a lot of parents today really take the numbers seriously in terms of trying to determine, ‘Is my kid going to be one of several Joshuas or Jennifers in their class?’” said Pamela Redmond Satran, co-creator of Nameberry, a blog for new parents which includes a database of over 50,000 baby names.
“Parents are trying to use whatever tools are available to make more informed decisions on naming their kids,” she continued.
One of those tools is Data.gov, a government database designed to make large amounts of data more easily digestible. It catalogued the frequency of baby names in Pennsylvania from 1910-2015 based on SSA applications for Social Security cards.
According to that data, 1910-34 was the age of John and Mary as Pennsylvania’s most popular baby names. The ‘60s saw the rise of Michael and Lisa, the ‘70s and ‘80s were Jennifer and Ashley’s time and the last decade or so has been defined by Mason, Noah, Ava and Emma.
In 2005, there was a clear turning point for baby names, where parents appeared to be making a concerted effort to avoid generic names.
“It’s just the difference in one generation to another,” the SSA’s Cole said. “I believe it’s just the generational choices, as we move from the baby boomers to the millennials.”
Ms. Satran, who published modern baby-naming book “Beyond Jason and Jennifer” in 2004, believes pop culture has a significant influence on naming trends.
For example, she thinks Kourtney Kardashian “is basically single-handedly responsible” for Mason’s rise in cultural prominence after she named her son that in 2009. Mason was Pennsylvania’s top baby name from 2011-15.
“There are names that have been coined by television shows and movies,” she said. “The fastest rising name in the U.S. this year was Kylo from ‘Star Wars.’ [There are] names like Khaleesi from ‘Game of Thrones.’ That didn’t exist before, and certainly it has a huge influence on names and trends.”
Sometimes, the popularity spikes in a name defy obvious explanation, like Jacob’s only Pennsylvania win in 2006. Satran said Jacob probably just rode the wave of the biblical naming cycle, which has currently landed on Asher and Ezra.
“I think Jacob appeals to a lot of different kinds of parents the way Michael did,” she said. “It appeals to Jewish parents and Christian parents. It appeals to people who want a less conventional boys name and people who want something with a lot of history.”
Ms. Satran believes that just like John and Mary a century ago, people will eventually tire of what are considered “unique” names today as well.
“I think it always happens, especially with names that become emblematic of their generation,” she said. “Just like it happened to Jennifer, it’s going to happen to Noah and Emma as well. I think every generation needs to reinvent baby names, and needs to choose names different than what they themselves are named …”
“It often takes about 100 years for a name to come back. So the cycling is inevitable. Even the ‘unique’ names people use get fashioned in and out.”
Find out how popular your name was by year and state with the Social Security Administration’s Baby Name Popularity Index.
First Published: July 3, 2017, 3:14 p.m.
