The Most Lopsided Name in Every State

Every state has a name it hoards.

The measure is simple: take a name's share of births in a state, divide by its share of births in America, and you get a lopsidedness score. A score of 1.0× means the name is exactly as common there as everywhere. Moshe scores 10.90× in New York. Kailani scores 12.26× in Hawaii. Waylon scores 5.07× in West Virginia. (We required at least 20 babies in the state, so one enthusiastic family can't fake a title.)

The table below is the full map — the most lopsided name in every state, girls and boys, 2025. But first, the two species of lopsided, because they mean different things.

Species 1: The name that exists in exactly one state

Some champions are lopsided by construction: every baby in America with the name was born in one state, so the score is just a measure of how small that state is. Minnesota's girls' winner, Maida — all 30 of America's 2025 Maidas were born in Minnesota (60.69×) — is one. New Jersey's boys' table is the extreme: three names tie at the state's ceiling, because New Jersey is the only state that registered them at all — Boruch (20 babies), Binyomin (42) and Avrohom (60). A hundred and twenty-two babies, three names, one state, zero anywhere else. These aren't regional preferences; they're whole naming cultures with a hard border.

Species 2: The national name one state adopts

The more surprising champions are famous names with a local super-concentration:

• Moshe (New York, 10.90×): 441 of America's 703 Moshes were born in New York; add New Jersey's 207 and 92% of the name lives in two states.
• Kailani (Hawaii, 12.26×) and Kaia (Hawaii, 11.02×): only 24 and 29 Hawaiian babies respectively — but the names are rare nationally (1,190 and 1,599 babies), so Hawaii's small classes dominate them. Isla, the hook that started this piece, scores 4.04× in Hawaii on 94 babies.
• Waylon (West Virginia, 5.07×): 115 of 5,399 Waylons — a genuinely national name that West Virginia claims five times over. West Virginia's girls' champion is also a runner: Wrenlee at 8.00×.
• George (DC, 6.75×): 33 of 2,835 Georges born in the capital. Some names are lopsided for poetry as much as demography.
• Colter is the only name that tops the boys' chart in three states — Montana (6.48×), North Dakota (5.96×) and South Dakota (4.72×) — a plains-wide ranch-country signature, 100 babies across the three.

Patterns emerge if you squint at the map: Maeve is the most lopsided girls' name in three different New England states (Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island). Utah's Bentley is a girls' name there (23 babies, 23.72× — while the name is overwhelmingly a boys' name nationally). And Wyoming's girls produce just one qualifier at all: Aurora clears the 20-baby floor; the state's #2 most lopsided girls' name has fewer than 20 babies and doesn't make the table.

The full map

Every state chart behind this map: the girl baby names by state and boy baby names by state pages.

See name recommendations based on your last name

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration · Data through 2025 · Updated 2026