Data Sources
Every number on NameRanky comes from one of the public datasets below. We do not survey, estimate, or model anything. For each source we separate what the publisher provides from what we compute on top of it, so a figure can always be traced back.
- U.S. Social Security Administration - Popular Baby Names (national)
Name counts compiled from Social Security card applications, by year of birth. SSA publishes the top 1,000 through its forms; we build pages for the top 100.
- Coverage
- 2008 to 2025
- Licence
- US federal work, public domain
- Updated
- Previous year released annually
- What we add
- Combine the boys' and girls' files for an overall rank, derive rank history and comparisons.
- U.S. Social Security Administration - state-specific files
Any name with fewer than 5 occurrences in a state and year is withheld to protect privacy, so absence means "fewer than 5", never zero.
- Coverage
- 51 states and DC
- Licence
- Public domain
- Updated
- Released with the national file
- What we add
- State rankings and per-name regional distribution. Withheld values are never treated as zero.
- Supreme Court of Korea - birth-registration name statistics
Korean name rankings and registration counts. The source dashboard publishes only the top twenty per year, which is the full extent of what is public.
- Coverage
- 2008 to 2026
- Licence
- KOGL Type 1 (attribution)
- Updated
- Annual, current year shown as a running total
- What we add
- Yearly collection, combined overall ranking, per-name trend. No extrapolation past rank 20.
- Supreme Court of Korea - official name-use hanja list
The official set of Chinese characters permitted in Korean given names.
- Coverage
- Current statutory list
- Licence
- KOGL Type 1
- Updated
- On revision
- What we add
- Re-indexed per syllable so Korean name pages can show candidates instead of asserting one.
- Naver Hanja Dictionary
Readings and glosses for individual characters, which the statutory list does not carry.
- Coverage
- 1,740 name-use characters
- Licence
- Referenced within quotation limits
- Updated
- Irregular
- What we add
- Intersected with the statutory list. Characters outside that list are not shown.
Sources we rejected
We only add a country when its government publishes name data as a primary source. Japan is the clearest example of what that rules out. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's vital statistics contain no given-name tables, and the Ministry of Justice does not publish rankings. Every Japanese name ranking in circulation comes from a private sample, usually an insurer's own customers, which carries a selection bias we cannot correct for and cannot place beside government counts.
Verified expansion candidates are the UK Office for National Statistics file for England and Wales, Brazil's IBGE census, and France's INSEE name file. When we add one we will label its true coverage. The ONS file is England and Wales only, not the whole UK, and pretending otherwise would be the same error we are avoiding with Japan.
Figures are as published and may be revised by the source. Verify exact numbers with the publishing institution. Processing rules are on methodology; report a discrepancy via contact.