Inside Story

According to the 2025 American Pet Products Association’s National Pet Owners Survey, 68 million U.S. households have a dog – and each of those pups needs a name. In 2025, the name you’re most likely to hear called out at the vet this time around is Luna.

According to US News & World Report, Luna, Bella, and Charlie take the top three spots for the most popular names in the country. Luna and Bella have swapped places from our 2023 data, and Charlie has moved up from fifth place. Max and Daisy still round out our top five but are bumped down from third and fourth to fourth and fifth, respectively.

When looking at the rest of the top 10, here’s how things shake out:

• Lucy has moved from eighth to sixth, while Coco has dropped from sixth to seventh.
• Milo is the last repeat in the top 10 from 2023, moving to eighth from ninth place. 
• Two newcomers are Cooper and Teddy in ninth and 10th place, respectively.
• Buddy and Bailey fall out of the top 10 entirely, going from seventh and 10th to 11th and 12th in turn.

Luna and Bella are representative of “Harry Potter” fans still going strong, with both being names of female characters in the series. Each could also be a reflection of multilingual households, with “luna”meaning moon and “bella”meaning beautiful or pretty in both Spanish and Italian.

As for Charlie, Max, and Daisy, they serve as a reminder that classics are classics for a reason.

• Charlie is the name of the main canine character in 1989’s “All Dogs Go to Heaven” and the moniker of a regular “Looney Tunes” character who began appearing in the 1940s. 
• Max may have first been popularized by Disney as the name of both Prince Eric’s pup in 1989’s “The Little Mermaid” and Max Goof, the son of the popular character Goofy, who first appeared under that name in 1992. More recently, the protagonist of “The Secret Life of Pets” and its sequel is a pup named Max.
• Daisy is the name of the puppy that has a brief appearance but a lasting impact as the catalyst to the plot of the first “John Wick” film in 2014. However, Daisy’s decades-long popularity can also be traced back to the pup in the “Blondie” film series spanning the late 1930s through the early 1940s.

The top 20 Dog names across the United States

1. Luna
2. Bella
3. Charlie
4. Max
5. Daisy
6. Lucy
7. Coco
8. Milo
9. Cooper
10. Teddy
11. Bailey
12. Buddy
13. Lola
14. Bear
15. Sadie
16. Rocky
17. Molly
18. Oliver
19. Stella
20. Penny

Most Popular Dog Names are Steady Across States

On a state level, Luna also takes the No. 1 spot in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, and Washington, D.C.

In fact, only six states have a most popular name that doesn’t make the nationwide top 10 – Utah, South Dakota, Montana, Kansas, Hawaii, and Alaska. While only eight states have a top-three name that is unique enough not to appear in the national top 100: Hawaii, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

Study Highlights From Across the U.S.

From states with similar tastes in dog names to names with a theme, here are some of our other findings:

• Neighboring states Connecticut and Massachusetts are kindred spirits with the same top three names: Luna, Bella, and Daisy.
• Maryland and New York also show similarities in names by proximity with the same top three being Bella, Luna, and Milo.
• Down South, Bella, Luna, and Max are the top three in both Texas and North Carolina.
• Buddy, which no longer makes the nationwide top 10, is in the top three in five states: Washington, South Dakota, Missouri, Idaho, and Hawaii.
• Of the top 100 names, 66 don’t appear on the top three lists for any state.
• Spelling variations appear more than once on the top 100 list with Zoey (No. 39) and Zoe (No. 73), Remi (No. 90) and Remy (No. 95), and Lily (No. 26) and Lilly (No. 89).
• Food names remain popular nationwide – Pepper (No. 47), Oreo (No. 59), Honey (No. 70), Ginger (No. 71), Olive (No. 75), Cookie (No. 77), Mochi (No. 81), and Peanut (No. 82) – but only appear in the top three for two states. Taffy ties for No. 2 in Montana, and Honey places second in North Dakota.
• Of the three flower names that make the list – Daisy (No. 5), Lily (No. 26)/Lilly (No. 89), and Poppy (No. 83) – only Daisy places in the top three on a state level (10 states).

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Photo Credit: Michael Kraus / Shutterstock.com