Duggar Family

Anna has become the dominant form of the Ann family, offering a touch of the international to English speakers and a bit more style than the oversimplified Ann or Anne.

Austin is one of the most attractive city names for babies, with an appealing southwestern feel and place-name panache.

Benjamin is a biblical name that has enjoyed widespread favor for decades, ranking in the US Top 50 for almost half a century and the Top 10 from 2015 until 2023.

Henry is back. The classic Henry climbed back onto the Top 10 in the US in 2021 for the first time in over a century, and now stands at Number 8.

Though it was used by the Puritans in the sixteenth century, the founding of the modern Jewish state in 1948 transformed Israel from a traditional favorite into an icon of Judaism.

Jackson is one of those names that's much more popular than you think, coming in near the top of our annual Playground Analysis, which ranks names by grouping all their spellings together. Last year, nearly 17,000 baby boys were named Jackson -- along Jaxon, Jaxson, Jaxxon, Jaxen, Jaxyn, Jaxsen, and Jaxsyn -- which counted together makes it the Number 3 boys' name.

James is one of the classic Anglo-Saxon names, a stalwart through the ages that is more popular—and yes, stylish—than ever today. It recently came out Number 1 in a poll of America's favorite boys' baby names, and is the most common male name, counting people of all ages, in the US.

A sweet name with many cross-cultural ties: it's an equivalent of Jane in languages including Czech, Slovak, Dutch, German, Slovene, Catalan, Estonian, and Latvian.

Jason, the Number 3 name for the entire decade of the 1970s -- thus the title of our original baby-naming book, Beyond Jennifer & Jason -- is more likely to be dad's name now than baby's, but it's still a widely used name.

Jedidiah, an Old Testament name with a touch of Gunsmoke-era western panache, is right in line to be revived along with the other biblical -iah names.

Jennifer is the Cornish variation of Guinevere, which ultimately derived from the Welsh name Gwenhwyfar. It has been in use in the English-speaking world since the 18th century but came to prominence in the 20th. Playwright George Bernard Shaw chose Jennifer for the name of his leading lady in his play The Doctor’s Dilemma, which drew more attention to the name.

Jeremiah is a solid Old Testament prophet name that has gradually taken the place of the now dated Jeremy, Gerard and Gerald, joining other currently popular biblical 'iah' names like Josiah and Isaiah. In the Bible Jeremiah is a famous prophet whose story is recorded in the book named after him.

This one-time trendy form of Jeremiah hovered just outside the Top 25 throughout the 1970s and 80s.

Once rare, this streamlined form of Jessica has been boosted by two very different television figures: the Jemima Kirke character on HBO series Girls, and reality television daughter Jessa Duggar.

Probably due to its nursery rhyme association, Jill has the perpetual air of a rosy-cheeked tot -- even though it is one of the oldest names on the roster, a medieval variation on the Roman Julia. The pairing of Jack and Jill to connote a generic boy and girl goes back at least to the fifteenth century. But can knowing Jill's history keep it from sounding like a cute mid-twentieth century invention? There may be some possibility of Jill making it back up the hill.

Peaked in the 1940s, but still an amiable classic, a la Joe and Tom -- though rarely used on its own.

John reigned as the most popular of all boys' Christian names for 400 years, from the time the first Crusaders carried it back to Britain until the 1950s. Then American baby namers finally seemed to tire of this straight-arrow, almost anonymous John Doe of names, replacing it with fancier forms like Jonathan and the imported Sean and Ian.