The 50 Most Beautiful Baby Names, According to Science

Naming a baby is one of the most fraught experiences of parenthood. Whatever handle you give your kid, they’re likely to be saddled with it for the rest of their lives. So why not rely on science for an objective look at what names sound best to the ear?

Baby gifting site My 1st Years recently commissioned a study led by Bodo Winter, associate professor of cognitive linguistics at the University of Birmingham, to examine which popular baby names in the United States are most pleasing to hear. Here’s the list, with methodology explained below.

Boys’ Names

1. Matthew
2. Julian
3. William
4. Isaiah
5. Leo
6. Levi
7. Joseph
8. Theo
9. Isaac
10. Samuel
11. Miles
12. James
13. Elijah
14. Luke
15. Noah
16. Santiago
17. Owen
18. Logan
19. Liam
20. Roman
21. Ryan
22. Cooper
23. Jack
24. Maverick
25. Anthony
26. Ezekiel
27. Carter
28. Benjamin
29. Lucas
30. Henry
31. Jacob
32. Lincoln
33. Mason
34. Nathan
35. Asher
36. Jackson
37. Andrew
38. Cameron
39. Alexander
40. Theodore
41. Adam
42. Gabriel
43. Kingston
44. Daniel
45. David
46. Hunter
47. Dylan
48. Muhammad
49. Sebastian
50. Adrian

More Articles About Baby Names:

Girls’ Names

1. Sophia
2. Zoe
3. Everly
4. Sophie
5. Riley
6. Ivy
7. Paisley
8. Willow
9. Ellie
10. Emily
11. Evelyn
12. Eva
13. Elena
14. Chloe
15. Nova
16. Penelope
17. Lucy
18. Lily
19. Olivia
20. Naomi
21. Emma
22. Natalie
23. Sofia
24. Eleanor
25. Violet
26. Bella
27. Luna
28. Ella
29. Victoria
30. Isabella
31. Maya
32. Natalia
33. Amelia
34. Savannah
35. Charlotte
36. Stella
37. Hazel
38. Athena
39. Maria
40. Autumn
41. Kennedy
42. Aurora
43. Alice
44. Aria
45. Harper
46. Serenity
47. Nora
48. Grace
49. Elizabeth
50. Hannah

How can science evaluate whether a name is “pleasant”? This study builds on research conducted by James Adelman and colleagues at the University of Warwick in 2018 [PDF] on the emotional valence (degree of pleasantness) of words by examining phonemes, or units of sound in a word. A pleasing phoneme at the beginning of a word (or name), for example, can signal positivity to the listener.

Baby names were broken down phonetically and then evaluated using Adelman’s table to come up with a valence score for each phoneme in the name. The higher the score, the more pleasing it may sound.

Naturally, naming babies is still a deeply personal exercise, and you may disagree with linguistics on certain matters. Sophia might indeed be a nice name, but not if your last name is Adams—the two As at the end of the first name and beginning of the last will blend together.  

If you prefer originality over phonetic appeal, you can always grab one of the least popular baby names from over a century ago. Parthenia may not stand up to scientific scrutiny, but it’s memorable.