The Baby Names That Are Far More Common in Alabama Than Anywhere Else

Hampton is the most distinctively Alabama boy’s name in America outside South Carolina, given there 11 times more often than the national rate. Ann leads the girls at 9×. Alabama produces 1.45% of US births but claims 16% of every Hampton and 13% of every Ann born in the country. The state’s naming list reads like a Deep South regional vocabulary shared with Mississippi and South Carolina — the same names, elevated across all three simultaneously.

Name	Sex	AL lift	AL births	US births	Expected at national rate	AL's share
Hampton	M	11.1x	65	404	6	16.1%
Ann	F	9.0x	114	872	13	13.1%
Blakeleigh	F	8.5x	42	339	5	12.4%
Juana	F	7.7x	79	710	10	11.1%
Jamarion	M	7.4x	41	383	6	10.7%
Ansley	F	6.6x	80	828	12	9.7%
Kyzer	M	6.3x	45	492	7	9.1%
Tylan	M	6.1x	66	747	10	8.8%
Rayleigh	F	6.1x	46	521	8	8.8%
Judson	M	6.0x	97	1,107	16	8.8%
Journei	F	5.6x	54	666	10	8.1%
Merritt	F	5.5x	60	750	11	8.0%

Which baby names are most distinctive to Alabama?

Hampton leads at 11.1 times the national rate, with 65 Alabama boys against an expected six. Ann follows at 9.0×, Blakeleigh at 8.5×, and Juana at 7.7×. Eighty names appear in Alabama at more than twice the national rate — the most of any state in the series outside New York and Mississippi.

Three patterns show up in the list. There’s a traditional naming thread of old given names and surnames: Ann, Judson, Merritt, Coleman, Fisher, Hampton. There’s a respelled-and-invented thread: Blakeleigh, Kyzer, Rayleigh, Journei, Jamarion, Tylan. And there’s a Spanish-language thread not typical of Deep South naming: Juana at 7.7×, alongside Graciela, Marisol, and Yesenia further down the list.

Why does Ann still rank so high in Alabama?

Ann peaked in Alabama at 329 births in 1953. In 2025 it was given to 25 girls — down 92% from the peak, but still 9× the national rate because the national rate fell further. The rest of the country has abandoned Ann so thoroughly that Alabama’s modest holdout is enough to put it at the top of the distinctiveness ranking.

The same pattern holds in Mississippi, where Ann leads the list at 14.2×. Both states keep giving it at a rate that elsewhere would have vanished decades ago.

Name	1953 peak	2012	2016	2021	2025	Direction
Ann (F)	329	19	24	22	25	Holding
Judson (M)	—	14	17	17	22	Rising
Hampton (M)	—	11	—	10	16	Rising
Ansley (F)	—	26	33	20	11	Declining
Tylan (M)	—	13	7	14	16	Rising

Judson is the quieter story. It has risen from 14 Alabama boys in 2012 to 22 in 2025, with no apparent peak in sight. It’s a surname-as-first-name in the Southern tradition, and it appears elevated in Georgia and Tennessee as well.

Is Alabama part of a regional naming pattern?

Yes, and more clearly than any other state in this series. Hampton, Ann, Tylan, Ansley, and Coleman all rank as distinctively Southern in Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Georgia simultaneously. They are not specific to Alabama — they are a regional vocabulary that Alabama participates in heavily.

This is different from Utah or Hawaii, where the distinctive names are truly local. Alabama’s list reflects a shared Deep South culture more than something unique to the state. That makes it a harder story to tell as a single-state piece, but a more interesting one as a regional finding.

Are Alabama’s most popular names also its most unusual?

Partly. From 2021 to 2025, Alabama’s most common names were William, John, James, Noah, Liam, and Olivia. Like Mississippi, Alabama still has John and James in the top five — names that have largely fallen out of the top tier elsewhere. William leads the list, which is also unusual nationally. Alabama’s traditional naming character reaches further up the popularity chart than most states.

How does Alabama compare to other states?

Alabama is the third member of what the data suggests is a Deep South naming region, alongside Mississippi and South Carolina. Mississippi has the most depth (34 names above 5×), South Carolina has the sharpest peaks (Sullivan at 21.9×, Hampton at 20.8×), and Alabama sits between them.

Tennessee shows milder versions of several Alabama names — Judson at 3.8×, Ann at 2.8×, Ansley at 3.2× — consistent with the pattern fading as you move north.

Where does this data come from?

The figures come from the Social Security Administration’s state-level baby name files, which record every name given to at least five babies of one sex in a state in a given year, drawn from Social Security card applications. The records run from 1910 through 2025. We analyzed 2021 through 2025 and required at least 40 state births and 200 national births for a name to qualify.

Two caveats. Names given to fewer than five babies in a state-year are suppressed, which is why Hampton shows no 2016 Alabama figure. And the files record where a baby was born, not where the family lives now.

Source: Social Security Administration — Baby Names by State

Analysis covers births 2021–2025. Published September 2026.