Are ‘The Chosen’ and ‘Yellowstone’ influencing parents’ choice of baby names?

If you’re having a baby boy soon, you’re probably thinking of a biblical name like Elijah or Noah.

Expecting a girl? Chances are, you’re leaning toward a name that ends with an “a” — Luna, Eva, Emma, Amelia, Sophia or Isabella.

Those are among the Social Security Administration’s newly released list of the most popular baby names in 2022. The agency also took a look at the names that saw the fastest increase in popularity last year. Fans of the “The Chosen” and “Yellowstone” might be especially interested in those.

“Chosen” was the third fastest-rising name for a boy, behind No. 1 Dutton and No. 2 Kayce. (Kayce, of course, is the “Yellowstone character played by Luke Grimes, and “Dutton” is the surname of the Montana family on which “Yellowstone” is based.)

For girls, the top three fastest-rising names were Wrenlee, Neriah and Arlet — origins of the recent surge in popularity unknown.

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The Social Security Administration releases analysis on the previous year’s most popular names each spring, the figures compiled from applications for Social Security cards.

Biblical names were well represented in the list of boys names, although a name of Irish origin, Liam, was in the No. 1 spot, where it has been since 2017. The rest of the top 10 are: Noah, Oliver, James, Elijah, William, Henry, Lucas, Benjamin and Theodore.

Olivia took the No. 1 spot for America’s baby girls. The name, which means “olive tree,” and which William Shakespeare fans will recognize from “Twelfth Night,” has beat out the competition since 2019.

The other names in the top 10 for girls are Emma, Charlotte, Amelia, Sophia, Isabella, Ava, Mia, Evelyn and Luna.

But there are significant differences by state, which the Social Security Administration also breaks down. In Utah, for example, Oliver topped the boys chart and Liam came in second. Utah parents made Olivia and Emma their first and second choices, respectively, just like the rest of the nation. But they weren’t as fond of Luna, which was No. 10 nationwide and 29th in Utah.

Though Utah is home to the country’s largest families and has a higher-than-average birthrate, it doesn’t exert an outsize pull on the list, according to the Social Security Administration.

“When it comes to any one state’s influence on the national popularity of names, it is important to note that the total number of births are the important factor for a state’s influence on the national list, rather than the birth rate from that state,” explained Nathan Cole, a Social Security Administration public affairs specialist.

That means California, Texas and Florida parents are having more impact on the top 10 baby names than even family-focused Utah.

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While the influence of “Yellowstone” on fastest-rising baby names is obvious enough, it’s unclear if the emergence of the name Chosen has anything to do with the popular television drama about Jesus’s life. Chosen, after all, isn’t a new name; NFL quarterback Cam Newton picked the name for his son born on Christmas Eve in 2015.

And Americans seem to be influenced by the names celebrities pick. Khaza is also one of the fastest rising boys names; its popularity is likely influenced by the rapper Kevin Gates, who named his son Khaza and released an album called “Khaza” last year.

Both the 2022 most popular baby names and the fastest-rising lists also had international flavor. Luna means “moon” in Spanish and Italian. Among the up-and-coming girls names is Amiri, derived from the word “amir,” which means prince (among other things) in both Arabic and Hebrew. Neriah, also a Hebrew name which means candle or lamp of God, is also one of the fastest rising girls names.

And maybe girls’ parents are thinking short but sweet — two names with only three letters, Mia and Ava, also topped the most common chart. And of 2022’s top 10 girls names, only two did not end with an “a.”

The Social Security Administration has been compiling the most popular baby names list since 1997; its data includes lists of the most common baby names stretching all the way back to the 1880s.

Mainstays on the list include Emma, which was a common name in the 1880s and which took the No. 2 spot on the 2022 nationwide list. William, which was sixth in 2022, was the second most popular name in the 1880s, as well.