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2026-11-15 02:30:12

Which Boys’ Names Are Most Popular Across the U.S.?

The most popular boys’ names vary widely across the U.S., with some dominating entire regions and others claiming the top spot in just one state.

This map shows the most popular name given to baby boys born in 2025 in every U.S. state and D.C., using data from the Social Security Administration. The agency counts names from Social Security card applications, organized by state of birth.

Liam Leads 15 States, Including the Three Largest

Just four names topped the rankings in 47 states. Liam, Noah, and Oliver remained the dominant favorites, but Theodore emerged as a serious contender, leading six states after topping just one in 2024.

Each name has its own territory. Liam led much of the Sun Belt, including California, Texas, and Florida, while Noah topped many East Coast states, from Massachusetts to South Carolina. Oliver’s states stretch across the Midwest and Mountain West, while Theodore’s are mostly northern: Maine, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Minnesota, along with Kansas and Wyoming.

The table below lists each state’s most popular boy’s name and its runner-up, along with the number of boys given each name in 2025:

The three largest states help explain how Liam remains No. 1 nationally while leading relatively few states. About 7,200 of the country’s 20,800 Liams were born in California, Texas, or Florida, and the name finished second in 17 other states. As with America’s favorite dog breeds by state, the national ranking gives more weight to populous states.

In some states, just one baby determined the most popular name. Noah edged out Theodore in Alaska by a single birth, while Oliver won Vermont by the same margin. Arizona was nearly as close, with 437 Liams versus 434 Noahs. Across 22 states, the winning name finished ahead by 10 babies or fewer.

These close races reflect how much baby-name preferences have diversified. Liam was given to about 1.1% of boys born in 2025, or one in every 88, according to the agency’s national data. In 1950, the top name, James, accounted for 4.7% of boys. With parents choosing from a wider variety of names, just 27 Theodores were enough to lead Wyoming.

Noah and Theodore Are Gaining on Liam

The map looked different a year earlier. Liam led 23 states in 2024, compared with just six for Noah. In 2025, seven states switched directly from Liam to Noah, including New York, where Liam had held the top spot for 10 straight years. Nationally, Liam’s lead over Noah shrank from about 1,800 babies to just 460.

The table below shows the five most popular boys’ names nationally each year from 2020 to 2025:

Liam, Noah, and Oliver have held the top three spots in the same order every year since 2019. Theodore is the newcomer. It ranked 99th in 2015 and entered the top five in 2024, before climbing to No. 1 in six states in 2025.

Its rise fits what baby-name experts call the 100-year rule, the tendency for a name to sound fresh again about a century after it was last in fashion. Theodore previously peaked at No. 30 in 1904, during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, before falling to No. 314 by 1999.

Not every state followed the national trends. Four states chose a name outside the national top four, including West Virginia, where Waylon became the most popular boy’s name after never previously topping a state ranking.

Alabama also broke with tradition. John overtook William, ending the latter’s 30-year run at No. 1 in the state. Although John now ranks 23rd nationally, it was America’s most popular boy’s name every year from 1880 to 1923.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out From John to Jayden: How Names Have Changed for American Boys Since the 1880s on Voronoi.

2026-11-15 01:22:45

Which Countries Spend the Most Time Playing Video Games?

From mobile games to consoles and PCs, gaming is a global pastime. But which countries spend the most time playing, and how do some of the world’s biggest gaming markets compare?

This visualization ranks 54 countries and territories by weekly gaming time using data from GWI’s Q2 2025 research, published in the Digital 2026 Global Overview Report. The figures cover internet users aged 16 and older and include mobile, console, and computer gaming.

The World Averages Just Under an Hour of Gaming a Day

The worldwide average is 6 hours and 56 minutes of gaming per week, equivalent to just under an hour per day. The table below shows the full ranking by average weekly gaming time.

Rank	Country / Territory	Weekly Time (h:mm)
1	Philippines	11:14
2	Brazil	10:56
3	Turkey	10:11
4	Mexico	9:24
5	United States	9:09
6	Chile	9:05
7	Thailand	8:53
8	South Africa	8:28
9	Argentina	8:26
10	Vietnam	8:21
11	Egypt	8:13
12	Malaysia	8:07
13	Portugal	8:03
14	Colombia	8:02
15	United Arab Emirates	7:56
16	Romania	7:46
17	Netherlands	7:45
18	Saudi Arabia	7:43
19	Norway	7:43
20	Greece	7:33
21	Serbia	7:32
22	Kenya	7:29
23	Bulgaria	7:26
24	New Zealand	7:20
25	France	7:16
26	Australia	7:14
27	Indonesia	7:13
28	Russia	7:13
29	Croatia	7:09
30	Sweden	7:08
31	Canada	6:56
32	Germany	6:54
33	Nigeria	6:48
34	United Kingdom	6:38
35	Spain	6:37
36	Singapore	6:33
37	Denmark	6:20
38	Italy	6:19
39	India	6:16
40	Taiwan	6:03
41	Israel	5:58
42	Austria	5:55
43	Switzerland	5:52
44	South Korea	5:48
45	Poland	5:39
46	Hungary	5:39
47	Belgium	5:36
48	Ireland	5:32
49	Czechia	5:23
50	China	5:12
51	Hong Kong	5:06
52	Ghana	4:41
53	Japan	3:59
54	Morocco	2:36
--	Global Average	6:56

The Philippines, Brazil, and Turkey are the only three markets where internet users average more than 10 hours of gaming per week. Brazil comes in second at 10 hours and 56 minutes, followed by Turkey at 10 hours and 11 minutes.

For Filipino internet users, the weekly figure works out to roughly 1 hour and 36 minutes of gaming per day, more than 35 minutes above the worldwide daily average.

At the other end of the ranking, Japan averages 3 hours and 59 minutes per week, while Morocco comes last at 2 hours and 36 minutes. The gap between the Philippines and Morocco is 8 hours and 38 minutes per week.

Brazil and Mexico Outgame U.S. Despite Massive Gaming Market

The Americas account for five of the top 10 markets, making the region particularly prominent in the ranking.

Brazil averages nearly two hours more gaming per week than the United States, while Mexico also ranks ahead of the U.S. at 9 hours and 24 minutes.

This contrasts with the U.S. being the world’s second-largest video game market by revenue in 2024, highlighting the difference between a country’s gaming market size and the time its internet users spend playing.

East Asia Shapes Gaming Culture, But Spends Less Time Playing

Some of the most surprising results come from East Asia, home to several of the world’s most influential video game industries.

South Korea averages 5 hours and 48 minutes of gaming per week, while China records 5 hours and 12 minutes. Taiwan comes in at 6 hours and 3 minutes, and Hong Kong at 5 hours and 6 minutes.

Japan ranks 53rd out of 54 markets, with internet users spending just 3 hours and 59 minutes gaming each week. That’s less than half the 9 hours and 9 minutes recorded in the United States.

Despite their global influence on gaming culture, all five East Asian markets fall below the worldwide average.

Japan’s position is particularly striking given its role in shaping the global gaming industry through companies such as Nintendo and Sony.

The contrast highlights an important distinction: producing some of the world’s most influential video games doesn’t necessarily mean spending the most time playing them.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed this visualization, check out The World’s Top Gaming Markets on the Voronoi app.

2026-11-14 23:11:09

Which Cities Are the Most and Least Stressful?

Major cities offer access to jobs and opportunities, but often at the cost of longer commutes, higher expenses, and everyday pressures.

Yet the most stressful cities aren’t necessarily the largest, with some smaller European cities ranking surprisingly high.

This visualization uses data from Remitly, which analyzed 170 cities using information collected in October 2025. Each city received a stress score out of 10 based on travel times, cost of living, healthcare quality, perceived crime, and air pollution.

The scores reflect urban living conditions rather than residents’ self-reported stress.

The World’s 10 Most Stressed Cities

New York’s fast-paced reputation makes its top ranking unsurprising. Dublin, however, finishes almost level with it, ahead of much larger cities such as Mexico City, Manila, and London.

Traffic helps explain Dublin’s position, with congestion making travel unusually slow for a city of its size.

The table below ranks the 10 cities with the highest stress scores.

New York ranks first with a score of 7.56, just 0.01 points ahead of Dublin. While New York has particularly high living costs, Dublin stands out for its traffic.

According to Remitly, driving 10 km in Dublin takes around 32 minutes, compared with an average of 21 minutes across the cities studied. That’s roughly 50% longer than the sample average.

Kolkata, which ranks 10th overall, has the slowest travel times in the dataset. A 10 km journey takes an average of 34 minutes and 33 seconds, more than three times as long as in San Antonio, Texas, the fastest city at 10 minutes and 13 seconds.

Europe also features prominently, with Dublin, London, Milan, Turin, and Athens all appearing among the 10 most stressed cities.

The World’s 10 Least Stressed Cities

At the opposite end of the ranking, the Netherlands stands out. Eindhoven and Utrecht occupy the top two spots, with two other Dutch cities also making the top 10.

The contrast with Dublin is striking, as cities in these two relatively wealthy European countries perform very differently on Remitly’s measures of urban stress.

The table below shows the 10 cities with the lowest stress scores.

Eindhoven ranks as the world’s least stressed city, scoring just 2.34 thanks in part to shorter commutes, strong healthcare scores, and low perceived crime.

A 10 km journey takes just under 15 minutes in Eindhoven, compared with approximately 32 minutes in Dublin.

Utrecht ranks second, while Groningen and Rotterdam place fifth and 10th, respectively. The Netherlands is the only country with four cities in the least-stressed top 10.

Norway and Australia also perform well, with two cities each: Trondheim and Bergen for Norway, and Canberra and Brisbane for Australia.

These results overlap with broader quality-of-life rankings. In Visual Capitalist’s ranking of the world’s best cities for quality of life in 2026, Canberra ranks first and Bergen second.

Although the methodologies differ, both studies highlight the importance of healthcare, environmental quality, and everyday convenience.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed this visualization, check out Good Luck Buying a Home in These Cities! on the Voronoi app.

2026-11-14 21:46:07

Which U.S. Universities Rank Among the Best?

Which U.S. universities come out on top? Three major rankings offer different perspectives on the country’s leading institutions, from undergraduate outcomes to academic reputation and research performance.

This infographic compares American institutions appearing in the top 25 U.S. positions of Forbes America’s Top Colleges (2027), QS World University Rankings (2027), and ShanghaiRanking’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (2026).

For QS and ARWU, international universities are excluded so the numbers represent positions among U.S. institutions rather than global ranks.

MIT, Harvard, and Stanford Lead the Pack

MIT is the most consistent leader, taking first place in both Forbes and QS and third in ARWU. Harvard claims the top position in ARWU while ranking third in the other two.

Stanford ranks second in QS and ARWU but sixth in Forbes. All three universities rank among the top six U.S. institutions across every list, despite the different criteria involved.

MIT tops Forbes’ ranking for the second consecutive year, supported by strong alumni earnings, low student debt, and a 96% six-year graduation rate. The university also offers free tuition to students from families earning under $200,000, subject to financial eligibility.

Why the University Rankings Differ

Different priorities produce striking contrasts. Vanderbilt, for example, ranks 10th in Forbes but falls outside the U.S. top 25 in both QS and ARWU.

Forbes emphasizes undergraduate outcomes, including earnings, student debt, and graduation rates, whereas QS considers research, reputation, and international reach. ARWU places greater weight on research indicators such as highly cited researchers, major scientific prizes, and published work.

As a result, universities that excel in undergraduate outcomes may not rank as highly on research-focused measures, making the three rankings complementary rather than interchangeable.

Public Universities Stand Out

Public universities are also well represented. UC Berkeley ranks ninth in Forbes and QS and fourth in ARWU, making it one of just six institutions in the top 10 across all three lists.

UCLA places 12th, 14th, and 11th, respectively, while UC San Diego ranks 22nd in Forbes and QS but 14th in ARWU.

The University of Michigan also appears in the top 25 of all three rankings, highlighting the strength of public research universities alongside elite private institutions.

The Northeast Has the Most Top Universities

The Northeast has the highest concentration of top-ranked universities in the U.S., accounting for 16 of the 36 institutions in the dataset (44%).

The Midwest and West follow with seven universities each, while the South has six.

Massachusetts and New York alone account for eight institutions, including MIT, Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell.

California dominates the West, with six of the region’s seven institutions, including Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UCLA.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Mapped: Which Countries Have the Most Top 1,000 Universities? on Voronoi.

2026-11-14 19:22:04

Which Websites Get the Most Traffic in 2026?

From searching for answers to watching videos and scrolling social media, billions of people visit the same familiar websites every day. AI assistants have now joined these established platforms among the world’s most visited online destinations.

This graphic ranks the top 40 websites by estimated monthly visits in September 2026, using data from Semrush. Figures cover desktop and mobile web sessions, including repeat visits.

Google and YouTube Tower Over the Rest

The gap between the top two websites and everyone else is staggering. YouTube, despite ranking second, receives nearly five times as many visits as third-place Facebook, while Google attracts almost twice as much traffic as YouTube.

Both leaders belong to Alphabet, giving the company the top destinations for search and online video. Google reported in its June investor presentation that Search queries had reached an all-time high the previous quarter and said people who use its AI-powered features search more often.

The table below shows the top 40 websites and their estimated monthly web visits in September 2026:

Together, Google and YouTube received 168.9 billion visits, compared with 91.3 billion across the other 38 websites in the ranking. In other words, Alphabet’s two leading platforms generated nearly twice as many visits as the rest of the top 40 combined, including major social networks, shopping sites, streaming services, and AI tools.

Other search engines draw substantial traffic but remain much smaller, with Bing receiving 2.3 billion monthly visits and DuckDuckGo 2.2 billion.

ChatGPT Joins the Internet’s Biggest Platforms

ChatGPT’s position among the top five websites puts an AI assistant alongside some of the internet’s most established social media platforms. Its 8.2 billion monthly visits place it between Facebook and Instagram, highlighting how prominent AI tools have become in everyday web activity.

Meta’s reach extends further through WhatsApp, which ranks seventh with 4.3 billion visits. Together, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp attract 23.3 billion monthly visits, giving Meta a substantial presence across social networking, photo sharing, and messaging.

Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok are among the other major social media platforms attracting billions of monthly visits.

While ChatGPT ranks alongside established social platforms, its closest AI competitors sit much further down the list. Claude, another of the world’s most popular AI tools, ranks 21st with 1.6 billion visits, roughly one-fifth of ChatGPT’s monthly traffic.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out ChatGPT Climbs to #10 in U.S. Web Traffic on Voronoi.

2026-11-14 01:05:14

Which Beauty Companies Are the World’s Largest?

From L’Oréal and Estée Lauder to Chanel and Shiseido, the world’s biggest beauty companies generate billions of dollars annually from skincare, cosmetics, fragrances, and hair care.

Together, the 10 largest companies generated $151.65 billion in beauty sales in 2025, accounting for nearly 59% of the combined sales of the world’s top 100 beauty companies.

This visualization ranks the world’s largest beauty companies using data from Women’s Wear Daily’s (WWD) 2025 Beauty Inc Top 100. Figures reflect beauty-related sales rather than total company revenue and are estimates except for L’Oréal’s reported figures.

Currency fluctuations also affected the U.S. dollar-denominated sales of some European and Japanese companies, even when their sales increased in local currencies.

L’Oréal Dominates Global Beauty Sales

Known for brands such as Kiehl’s, Kérastase, and CeraVe, L’Oréal generated $49.7 billion in beauty sales in 2025, growing 1.3% from the previous year.

That’s $22.7 billion more than second-ranked Unilever, whose portfolio includes brands such as Dove and Vaseline.

Procter & Gamble ranks third at $15.4 billion, followed closely by Estée Lauder at $14.7 billion.

The table below ranks the 21 largest beauty companies in the world based on 2025 sales:

Rank	Company	Headquarters	2025 Beauty Sales (Billion USD)	Sales Change YoY (in %)
1	L’Oréal	Clichy, France	49.7	+1.3
2	Unilever	London, UK	27.0	-2.9
3	Procter & Gamble	Cincinnati, U.S.	15.4	+3.0
4	The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.	New York, U.S.	14.7	-3.0
5	LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton	Paris, France	9.2	-3.0
6	Chanel Ltd.	London, UK	9.2	+3.1
7	Beiersdorf	Hamburg, Germany	8.9	0
8	Shiseido	Tokyo, Japan	6.5	-2.1
9	Coty Inc.	Amsterdam, Netherlands	5.8	-4.6
10	Puig	Barcelona, Spain	5.3	+5.5
11	Bath & Body Works	Columbus, U.S.	4.6	+1.2
12	Henkel	Düsseldorf, Germany	4.4	-0.9
13	Kao Corp.	Tokyo, Japan	4.4	+4.1
14	Kenvue	Skillman, U.S.	4.1	N/A
15	Natura Cosméticos SA	São Paulo, Brazil	3.8	-3.3
16	Colgate-Palmolive	New York, U.S.	3.5	-2.8
17	Amorepacific	Seoul, South Korea	3.2	+7.9
18	L’Occitane International SA	Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland	3.0	-7.9
19	LG H&H	Seoul, South Korea	2.5	-11.1
20	Mary Kay	Addison, U.S. / Geneva, Switzerland	2.4	0
21	Wella Company	New York, U.S.	2.4	+6.2

Together, the four largest companies generated $106.8 billion in beauty sales, highlighting the scale of the industry’s leading players.

European Companies Lead the Rankings

European-headquartered companies account for seven of the top 10 positions, reflecting the region’s strength across both luxury beauty and mass-market personal care.

Luxury-focused LVMH and Chanel are tied at $9.2 billion in beauty sales, followed closely by Germany’s Beiersdorf at $8.9 billion.

Outside Europe, Japan’s Shiseido ranks eighth globally with $6.5 billion in beauty sales, while South Korea’s Amorepacific and LG H&H recorded $3.2 billion and $2.5 billion, respectively.

The ranking also highlights the industry’s global reach, with major beauty companies headquartered across North America, Europe, Asia, and South America.

Beauty Sales Grow Despite Declines Among Major Players

The world’s 100 largest beauty companies generated a combined $258.99 billion in sales in 2025, up 2.7% from the previous year.

Yet performance varied significantly among the industry’s biggest players. Of the top 20 companies, 10 recorded declining sales, while South Korea’s Amorepacific posted the strongest growth at 7.9%.

Meanwhile, LG H&H recorded the steepest decline among the companies listed, with sales falling 11.1% year-over-year.

Two of the companies in this ranking, Procter & Gamble and LVMH, are also among the world’s top 50 most valuable companies.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

For more reading on beauty and luxury goods companies, check out LVMH & Its Market Rivals — Publicly Traded Luxury Leaders Ranked by Market Cap on Voronoi.