The Most Popular Travel-Inspired Baby Names in the US

Image: An infant sitting in an airport waiting area. (photo via iStock/Getty Images Plus/tatyana_tomsickova)
Image: An infant sitting in an airport waiting area. (photo via iStock/Getty Images Plus/tatyana_tomsickova)
Patrick Clarke
by Patrick Clarke
Last updated: 12:00 PM ET, Mon May 29, 2023

Hudson and Sydney are the two most popular travel-inspired names for American baby boys and baby girls, respectively, according to new research from Bounce.

The travel and luggage experts analyzed baby name data from the last two decades to uncover the travel destinations inspiring baby name choices across the U.S.

Hudson, derived from the famous Hudson River in New York, has been a popular choice for parents since the turn of the century, with over 77,000 baby boys born since 2000 in the U.S. with this name. Meanwhile, Sydney, inspired by Australia's famous harbor city, has been given to 107,000 baby girls since 2000—the same year Sydney hosted the Summer Olympics.

For boys, Preston—an English name with roots in the town of Preston in Lancashire, England as well as cities in Connecticut and Idaho—and Camden—a vibrant London borough and city in New Jersey—have also proven quite popular, popping up 58,384 times and 48,257 times since 2000, respectively.

Dakota (the only name that shows up in the top 10 for both sexes), Kingston, Israel, Devon, Dallas, Phoenix and Orlando round out the 10 most popular travel-inspired names for baby boys.

For girls, Brooklyn (104,566) and Alexandria (42,010) are the most popular following Sydney, proving that the famous New York City borough and ancient Egyptian city are still inspiring U.S. parents. Trailing Sydney, Brooklyn and Alexandria are London, Dakota, Paris, Carolina, Guadalupe, Journey and Adelaide.

Bounce's research required experts to source the total number of babies born with each travel-inspired name in the U.S. between 2000 and 2021 with data from the U.S. Census Bureau. From there, it created a list of potential travel-related baby names using various inspirations including country names, capital cities, rivers, mountains, general travel-related terms, and other major cities and travel destinations worldwide, eventually cross-referencing the list with the baby names data to find out which travel terms were used as baby names the most often.


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