The Baby Names That Are Far More Common in South Carolina Than Anywhere Else
Hampton is the most distinctively South Carolina boy’s name in America, given there 21 times more often than the national rate. Sullivan leads the girls at 21.9×. South Carolina claims 29% of every American Hampton and 30% of every Sullivan from a state responsible for 1.38% of US births. The list that follows splits cleanly between two traditions with almost nothing in common.
| Name | Sex | SC lift | SC births | US births | Expected at national rate | SC's share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sullivan | F | 21.9x | 65 | 215 | 3 | 30.2% |
| Hampton | M | 20.8x | 116 | 404 | 6 | 28.7% |
| Tymir | M | 9.1x | 53 | 421 | 6 | 12.6% |
| Kymir | M | 8.9x | 58 | 470 | 7 | 12.3% |
| Zymir | M | 6.8x | 72 | 767 | 11 | 9.4% |
| Ellison | F | 6.8x | 97 | 1,038 | 14 | 9.3% |
| Ansley | F | 6.7x | 77 | 828 | 11 | 9.3% |
| Knowledge | M | 6.3x | 60 | 691 | 10 | 8.7% |
| Coleman | M | 6.3x | 51 | 589 | 8 | 8.7% |
| Tylan | M | 5.5x | 57 | 747 | 10 | 7.6% |
| Kashmir | M | 5.0x | 40 | 575 | 8 | 7.0% |
| Patience | F | 4.7x | 46 | 707 | 10 | 6.5% |
Which baby names are most distinctive to South Carolina?
Sullivan leads at 21.9 times the national rate with 65 South Carolina girls against an expected three. Hampton follows at 20.8×, with 116 boys — the single largest raw count of any top-ranked name in either tradition. Tymir, Kymir, and Zymir complete the top five, each running at least seven times the national rate.
Spend a moment with the list and two separate naming vocabularies become visible. The first is traditional Southern: Hampton, Sullivan, Ellison, Ansley, Coleman, Patience — surnames used as first names, leaning on antebellum aristocratic resonance. The second is a cluster of -mir names — Tymir, Kymir, Zymir — alongside Knowledge and Kashmir, names with no overlap with the first group.
South Carolina has roughly equal shares of Black and white residents, and the two traditions appear to map onto that demographic divide. The dataset carries no demographic breakdown, so that inference rests on name patterns, not measured data. What the numbers show is that both are real and both are distinctively South Carolinian.
Is Hampton a South Carolina name?
More than anywhere else. Of 404 American boys named Hampton between 2021 and 2025, 116 were born in South Carolina — 29% of the national total. Alabama added another 65, Georgia 74, and North Carolina 53. Combined, those four states account for 308 of the 404, or 76%.
Hampton is functioning as a regional name, not just a South Carolina one, but South Carolina is where it concentrates hardest. It appears at 11.1× in Alabama and 5.3× in Georgia — high, but well short of South Carolina’s 20.8×.
Which South Carolina names are rising and which are fading?
Zymir has climbed from seven South Carolina boys in 2012 to 26 in 2025, its highest figure on record. Kymir emerged from almost nothing to 13. Hampton has grown gradually from 12 to 26. Ansley, meanwhile, has fallen from 26 girls in 2012 to eight — almost exactly mirroring what happened to it in Alabama and Mississippi over the same period.
| Name | 2012 | 2016 | 2021 | 2025 | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zymir (M) | 7 | — | 5 | 26 | Rising sharply |
| Hampton (M) | 12 | 13 | 23 | 26 | Rising |
| Kymir (M) | — | — | 12 | 13 | Rising |
| Ellison (F) | 17 | 18 | 20 | 23 | Rising |
| Tymir (M) | — | 6 | 8 | 10 | Rising |
| Ansley (F) | 26 | 26 | 19 | 8 | Falling |
Are South Carolina’s most popular names also its most unusual?
No. From 2021 to 2025, the most common names in South Carolina were Noah, William, Liam, James, Charlotte, and Olivia — the national list, lightly reordered. South Carolina’s distinctiveness lives well below that tier, among names given to 40 to 120 children over five years.
How does South Carolina compare to other states?
South Carolina reaches higher on its top two names than almost any state in the series — Sullivan at 21.9× and Hampton at 20.8× both top anything in Utah, Louisiana, or Pennsylvania. What South Carolina lacks is depth: nine names above 5×, compared to Minnesota’s eleven and Mississippi’s thirty-four.
The closest comparison in the series is Mississippi, which shares Hampton, Tylan, and Ansley on its top list. Those two states and Alabama appear to share a naming region, with a set of names moving at elevated rates across all three simultaneously.
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 Kymir and Tymir show blanks in early years. 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.
Disclaimer
This article is for general informational purposes only. Information and conditions are subject to change. Verify current details directly with the relevant source before making any decisions.
