What The Most Popular Girls' Baby Names Of 2020 Actually Mean
Every year, the Social Security Administration releases a list of the most popular baby names for the year prior. Although they have yet to publish the 2020 version, heavily-trafficked sites like BabyNames.com and Nameberry.com tabulate their own results based on which pages receive the most visits. "Our popularity lists tend to predict the U.S. Social Security baby names popularity lists because our members are naming future babies!" Baby Names wrote. Suffice to say, they're way ahead of the trends. Their list shows Amelia (and its variant spelling, Emilia) coming in first place, followed closely by Charlotte and Aurora. When Nameberry calculated their results mid-year, they had Luna, Maeve, and Aurora stealing all the attention.
At first glance, they may seem unrelated, but we can't help but notice something similar about these names. It all comes down to one single theme. Can you guess what it is? Here are the meanings of each of the top girl names for 2020.
The top girls names of 2020 all have one thing in common
Despite the fact that many parents spent the better part of 2020 at home, a good portion of them named their quarantine babies after what they weren't allowed to do: go to work. Yep, the oh-so-quaint name Amelia means "work." According to Baby Names, its popularity dates back to 18th century England, when a handful of princesses bore the name. But we can't help but think that the recent uptick in little Emelias comes from a "Game of Thrones" queen: the Mother of Dragons herself, who's played by the beautiful and talented Emilia Clarke. Baby Names lists the literary name Charlotte second, which means "free" and is of French origin. It's also the name of Prince William and Kate Middleton's daughter, Princess Charlotte.
Luna is a sweet little name of Italian origin that means "moon." According to Nameberry, Luna's popularity is influenced both by Harry Potter and several celebrity babies, including Chrissy Teigen and John Legend's daughter. And let's be real: They're basically America's royal family. Then there's Maeve, an Irish name meaning "intoxicating." The original form was the title of a powerful warrior queen in first-century Ireland, per The Bump. Lastly, there's arguably the most royal name of them all, the one that landed on both lists: Aurora, which means "dawn." Aurora is the name of the Roman goddess of sunrise, whose tears apparently turned into morning dew. Of course, we can't forget the Disney princess of the same name, better known as Sleeping Beauty (via Nameberry).