Lyrik & Lyla Are Among 2013's First Babies

What's in a name? CREDIT: B Calkins, Shutterstock View full size image

The first babies of 2013 are a creatively named bunch, with monikers ranging from vintage — Olivia Rose — to new inventions such as Lyrik.

Lyrik was the first baby born in Colorado in 2013, according to NameCandy.com, which collects the names of the first newborns in each state every year. Lyrik, a boy, was named for his mother's love of music, according to the Denver Post. Though "Lyrik" has never ranked in the top 1,000 in U.S. baby names, "Lyric" ranked as the 325th most popular name for girls in 2011, and it was 858th for boys.

The hard "K" sound both at the start of the name and at the end has been on-trend for names in 2013, if Jan. 1 babies are any measure. The letter has been popular for some time, according to NameCandy. Among the new babies are Kiera (Minnesota), Klara (North Dakota) and Kennedi (Mississippi). [Quiz: Test Your Baby Name Knowledge]

While classic names such as New York's Olivia Rose are popular, other parents are aiming for the unique. In Virginia, the first baby of the year, a boy, was named Daffon. Mobley entered the world at 12:33 a.m. in Tennessee, and Sayge Raylynn became 2013's first new Vermonter at 1:59 a.m.

Speaking of Raylynn, "Y" is another popular letter among parents picking baby names today, as South Carolina's Lyla can attest.

In May, the Social Security Administration releases the most popular baby names of the previous year, so 2012's top monikers have yet to be announced. In 2011, "Sophia" topped the list for girls and "Jacob" for boys. Vowel-heavy girls names such as Isabella, Emma, Olivia and Emily dominated the top 10. Among the top 10 boy names were Mason, William, Jayden, Aiden and Daniel.

Having a popular name isn't what it used to be, though. In the 1950s, the most popular girl and boy names (Mary and John) accounted for half of all babies named each year. Today, the top names account for just 1 percent of all babies.

That's because parents choose more unusual baby names now, striving for the perfect balance between unique and pleasing to the ear, according to Laura Wattenberg, a statistician who blogs about names at BabyNameWizard.com.

"Everybody is looking for this impossible dream, which is a name that everybody knows, everybody loves and nobody is using," Wattenberg told LiveScience last year. "As you can imagine, it just doesn't work that way."

See the state-by-state list of New Year's babies at NameCandy.com.

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