Most popular baby names for boys of the last decade in Illinois

William Shakespeare's famous female protagonist once asked, "What's in a name?" The answer? Honestly, quite a bit. Though the young lovestruck Juliet presents her soliloquy in the interest of proving quite the opposite—that a name means nothing, and her affection for Romeo should not be hindered by feuding family names—the truth about the weight carried by a name is quite contrary to her point.

The reality is that names tell stories. They tell stories about those who give them to us, and they come to tell stories about us as we carry them through our lives. They tell stories about cultural trends and current events that inform them or about the long-standing traditions that serve to carry them on from generation to generation. Names are like mirrors that reflect where we've come from, who we are, what connects us, and where we're going.

This is a time when finding unique baby names seems to be a high priority. Yet a look at baby name trends over the past decade shows that even as we grasp for the unconventional, there's still a fair share of names that reign supreme when it comes to baby name selection.

Stacker compiled a list of the most popular baby names for boys of the last decade in Illinois using data from the Social Security Administration. Names are ranked by number of babies from 2010 to 2019.

Keep reading to see if your name made the list.