Goodbye, Gwyneth: The biggest changes from this year's list of top baby names

And hello, Axl and Anakin!

Meet: Axl.
(Image credit: (Jamie Grill/Tetra Images/Corbis))

The Social Security Administration has released its list of the top 1,000 baby names of 2014. At first glance it seems that not much changed from the previous year. Sophia, Emma, and Olivia are still in the top three for girls. Abigail, Ava, Emily, Isabella, Madison, and Mia are still in the top 10. Noah is still number 1 for boys, while Liam, William, Jacob, Michael, Mason, Alexander, Ethan, and Daniel all remain in the top 10. But if you dig a little deeper, through the whole top 1,000, 2014 starts to distinguish itself in all kinds of ways.

For example, several names made the list this year for the first time ever. Axl (no 'e') never cracked the top 1,000 before, not even in the Axl Rose Guns N' Roses era, but this year it came in at 850. Was it because Fergie and Josh Duhamel named their baby Axl?

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Arika Okrent

Arika Okrent is editor-at-large at TheWeek.com and a frequent contributor to Mental Floss. She is the author of In the Land of Invented Languages, a history of the attempt to build a better language. She holds a doctorate in linguistics and a first-level certification in Klingon. Follow her on Twitter.