What Were The Most Popular Baby Names of 2016?

Spoiler Alert: Brodie is not my given name. It's a longstanding nickname given to me by the first group of guys I did radio with back in college, and it just stuck. But I like it, because it's an uncommon name, whereas my real name was in the top five most popular baby names for the year I was born. I remember sitting in the fourth grade, I was one of four students in just my classroom with that name, out of a total of 13 male students. That's a pretty high number.

I get naming your kid something nice, something you like, is a personal choice and you're probably not thinking of what other kids are being named. Heck, it may even be indicative of the trends of the day, maybe a movie character or something. I was born the year Goonies came out, so I guess I should just be glad I didn't get stuck with Chunk. Max would have been cool, though. Or Drago, though I don't know if my US Military father would have been too keen on naming me after the Soviet bad guy from Rocky IV.

But in about 20 years, we can expect a lot of DJ Jacksons and DJ Sophias. Those were the most popular baby names of 2016.

Now, this data is compiled from a popular baby website, BabyCenter, from over 400,000 parents. For a comparison, BabyCenter's most popular names of 2015 were Sophia and Jackson (yes... two years in a row), while the Social Security Administration had Emma & Noah as the most popular names of 2015. The SSA won't release their 2016 data until later this year.

In the meantime, one blogger makes a strong case against using Game of Thrones names. Me? If the day ever comes I have spawn, I have a name picked out. It's classic, but definitely a nerd reference you'll have to think about. Keeping it under wraps, for now.