Matthew and Emily Top List of Most Popular Names for 2002 The A's and the J's Have It!

Each year, Stork Avenue, Inc, one of America's largest birth announcement companies, publishes the top baby names. Here are the top 100 boys and girls names and the top 10 names per state.

Coral Gables, FL - Stork Avenue, one of Americas largest catalog, mail order birth announcement companies (StorkAvenue.com), has released their list of the most popular names of 2002. The top five names for boy babies were: Matthew, Ryan, Jacob, Zachary and Michael. The top five girl names were: Emily, Lauren, Emma, Olivia and Abigail.

Emma was the most popular girls name in Western states, while Anna is most popular in the South and Emily led the way in the Northeast and Midwest," said Bob Hunter, president of Stork Avenue. Boys named Matthew led in Southern states, while Ryan dominated the Northeast and Jacob took the West. Nicolas was most popular in the Midwest.

"A very interesting trend began late last year and continued through 2002," Hunter said. "One fifth of the girls' names began with the letter "A." More than one third of boy's names began with the letter "J." Some examples of those top names are:
Girls: Abigail, Ashley, Alyssa, Anna, Alexandra, Allison, Amanda, Ava, Alexa
Boys: Jacob, Joseph, Jackson, Jack, Joshua, John, Justin, James, Jordan

According to an on-going survey of Stork Avenue customers, more than 90 percent prefer a name that expresses a special feeling or creates individuality or uniqueness. But, finding a unique name can be harder than expected, especially when more than four million babies are born each year in the United States.

To help parents-to-be find that special name, Stork Avenue offers 'BabyNamer' databases on their website, with more than 6,000 names to research and a 'Baby Naming Tips' section.

Brisa, Eira, Hanya and Paisley are all unique girls' names that have been used by our customers," Hunter said. Unusual boys' names include Bowen, Darrow, Hastin and Kenan. Our most popular unisex names were Dylan, Reagan, Cassidy and Sydney."

Most Popular Names of 2002:
http://babynamer.storkavenue.com/top_100_names_2002.html

Most Popular Girls' Names State by State:
http://babynamer.storkavenue.com/top_5_states_girls_2002.html

Most Popular Boys' Names State by State:
http://babynamer.storkavenue.com/top_5_states_boys_2002.html

Storkavenue.com BabyNamer:
http://babynamer.storkavenue.com/

Baby Naming Tips:
http://babynamer.storkavenue.com/naming_tips.html

Stork Avenue, Inc. is a mail order/internet birth announcement company, based in Coral Gables, Florida. It was founded by Bob and Sue Hunter in 1993. The company publishes more than 11 million catalogs and sales brochures, that are distributed throughout the United States, both pre- and post-natally. Stork Avenue has helped announce children from scores of nations around the world. They have included children of royalty, national politicians and celebrities.