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If you know me well, you know I love names. I know the names of a lot of plants and a lot of artists. There is not much I love more than walking through a garden or a museum and knowing the name of everything I see. I don't know why I have that passion but I do. What I also find fascinating is how people name their children. What I like to look at most are the trends and see what they say about society and people. Yesterday the U.S. Social Security organization released the top 1000 names of 2007. Good reading!

So go to http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/babynames/. There is a wealth of information on this site, including tops names of every decade back to 1880 and you can trace the popularity of a name back 100 years! For example, my name has been in the top 1000 since 1945 and reached its pinnacle in in 1986 at 13th most popular name of the year. It's popularity has been falling ever since but it still holds strong at 146th in 2007.

But back to the top names of 2007- Emily, Isabella, Emma, Ava and Madison top the list for girls and Jacob, Michael, Ethan, Joshua and Daniel top the list for boys. So what does this mean to America. Well I think it shows that for the majority of people they want girls to be girls and boys to be boys. All the top girl names are very feminine and all the top boys names are decidedly male. Transgender names like Taylor and Jordan are dropping in popularity. And some names are duking it out for rights to be either male or female, like the name Jayden is now most decidely male now although some still girls have it. I think it shows that most people want a return to traditional values. Emily and Jacob ae both very old, very traditional names. Jacob, Daniel, Joshua are also all biblical, as is Hannah (no. 9 for girls) and Elizabeth (no. 10).

People are getting very creative as well though, especially with spelling. The name Jayden has at least five spelling variations and the name Caitlyn has at least 8 variations. Also different, rare names are becoming popular like Nevaeh (heaven spelled backwards) is no. 31 and Serenity is no. 126. Esmeralda is at no. 194, before Kendra or Chelsea. As for Boys they are quite a bit more conservative. From the top 100 you can also see that there is a large Hispanic population in the U.S. The traditional hispanic names: Angel, Jose, Diego, Luis, Juan, Xavier, Carlos, Jesus, Miguel and Antonio are all in the top 100 for boys names.

Anyway, it's all very fascinating so take a look at look up your own name. Maybe you will be suprised.