The process of choosing a name for a newborn can be fun. It can also be stressful, considering it’s basically the first decision parents make that will affect their child for the rest of their life — unless they decide to change it.

Parents may draw on many influences — pop culture, family history, or simply what sounds good to them.

To identify the 21st century’s most popular baby boy names in each state, 24/7 Tempo reviewed the top 1,000 boy names from the Social Security Administration for each state and for each year from 2001 to 2019.

Baby boys born between 2001 and 2019 had a good chance to be named Jacob. As of 2019, this has been the century’s most popular boy name in 20 states across the country — from Arizona to Maine. Michael and William are tied for second place, with each being the most popular since 2001 in 10 states.

Of these names, however, only William has consistently been among the most popular boy names in the U.S. since the Social Security Administration started keeping records in the 1880s. It was not until the 1940s that Michael made it into the top 10. Jacob made its debut among the most popular names in the 1990s.

Parents try to choose what they consider the best name for their child. And in some cases, that means a unique name instead of a popular one — these are the 30 most uncommon baby names of the last 100 years.

Click here to see the most popular boy name in every state since 2001

Methodology

To identify the 21’s century’s most popular names in each state, 24/7 Tempo reviewed the top 1,000 boy names from the Social Security Administration for each state and for each year from 2001 to 2019. The SSA has been tracking the most popular names each year beginning in 1880. The dataset includes 31,277,694 male births between 2001 and 2019, the latest year for which data is available.