WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Reality television and movies sparked a surge in the popularity of Maci, Bentley and Kellan as baby names last year, a report from the Social Security Administration on Thursday suggests.
Maci and Bentley were the names with the greatest increases in popularity. Maci Bookout is a personality from MTV show “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom.” Bentley is the name of her son.
Kellan is the second fastest-growing boy’s name, from “Twilight” star Kellan Lutz, while Tiana, the name of Disney’s first African-American princess in “The Princess and the Frog” is increasingly popular for girls.
Knox, the moniker for one of Brad Pitt’s and Angelina Jolie’s twins, was third on the boys.
However, the most popular baby names were a bit more classic. For the twelfth year in a row, Jacob was the favorite boys name. Isabella, for the second year, won out for the girls.
Both were picked for more than 20,000 newborns each, or around one percent of the total, based on Social Security card applications for U.S. births.
Ethan and Sophia ranked second respectively for boys and girls.
The Social Security Administration said that there has been a recent trend in names that were popular in the early to mid-1900s like Ava and Chloe. This probably means more newborn girls are being named after their grandmothers.
Ava was fifth on the girls list with Emma, and Olivia the other names in the top five in overall popularity. Michael, Jayden, and William, filled out the top five for boys.
Social Security commissioner Michael Astrue said he was disappointed in at least one feature of this year’s list. Elvis, for the first time since 1954, fell out of the top 1,000 names.
“This news about Elvis has me all shook up,” Astrue said in a statement. “But that’s all right mama. I’m confident that, next year, America’s new parents can’t help falling in love with Elvis again and moving it back into the top 1,000.”
Reporting by Wendell Marsh; Edited by Jerry Norton
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