PupCensus

New York City · 302,213 dogs

What people actually call their dogs

Every list of dog names online was written by someone making them up. This one is built from the license records cities publish as open data: 302,213 real New York dogs, what they are called, what they are, and where they live.

302,213Licensed New York dogs
32,732Different names between them
3592Names common enough to chart
82Neighborhoods mapped

Luna took the crown

0 80 160 2005: 23.4 per 10,000 2006: 29.7 per 10,000 2007: 31.8 per 10,000 2008: 31.7 per 10,000 2009: 32.3 per 10,000 2010: 51.1 per 10,000 2011: 42.8 per 10,000 2012: 49.4 per 10,000 2013: 64.5 per 10,000 2014: 69.9 per 10,000 2015: 75.5 per 10,000 2016: 98.9 per 10,000 2017: 112.7 per 10,000 2018: 122.1 per 10,000 2019: 132.8 per 10,000 2020: 131.5 per 10,000 2021: 155.3 per 10,000 2022: 138.7 per 10,000 2023: 125.1 per 10,000 20052010201520202023
Dogs called Luna, per 10,000, by the dog’s year of birth

Luna has gone up more than five times in eighteen years and is now the most common dog name in New York, having passed Bella somewhere around 2018. See the full picture.

On the way up

Name2008–122019–23
Luna42.5 137.3
Milo36.8 90.2
Teddy44.8 69.4
Archie9.7 33.8
Leo29.5 50.6
Ollie10.8 31.3
Loki8.3 28.1
Nova3.2 21.2

Per 10,000 dogs, by the dog’s year of birth

On the way out

Name2008–122019–23
Max107.9 65.9
Bella122.2 88.8
Lucky61.6 29.3
Buddy60.1 30.1
Molly47.3 17.9
Princess56.9 27.6
Lucy68.3 41.3
Sophie37.6 13.9

Per 10,000 dogs, by the dog’s year of birth

A dog’s name tells you the ZIP code

Not one of 1,891 licensed dogs in the Financial District is called Princess. In Cypress Hills, 25 of 1,782 are, which is 140.3 per 10,000 against 40.5 across the city. Bowie runs the other way: 31.7 per 10,000 in Hamilton Heights, and not a single one among the 3,193 licensed dogs of Annadale. Look up your neighborhood.

Rarer here Commoner here shaded by times the citywide rate of 41
Princess, shaded by how much more common the name is in each ZIP code than in New York as a whole. The pale wedge down the middle is Manhattan.

The most common names in New York

Bella 3,178Luna 2,807Max 2,660Charlie 2,384Coco 2,321Lola 1,926Rocky 1,858Milo 1,811Teddy 1,721Lucy 1,604Daisy 1,502Buddy 1,352

See all 3592

Please read this bit

These are dog license records, not a count of all dogs. The New York City health department estimates that around 80% of the city’s dogs are unlicensed. Everything here is expressed as a rate per 10,000 licensed dogs so that places and years can be compared fairly, but this describes the dogs whose owners filled in a form, which is not quite the same as describing the dogs. The full method is here, including everything we changed about the raw data.