Health Department releases popular baby names, causes of death in Iowa

The Iowa Department of Public Health has just released a report which shows which names were most popular for babies born in Iowa last year. Emma was the most popular name for a baby girl born in Iowa last year. As you may know, Emma was the name of the baby on the popular television program “Friends.” Other names for baby girls on the top ten list in Iowa were Madison, Grace, Olivia, Abigail, Emily, Hannah, Elizabeth, Alexis and Samantha. The most popular name for a boy born in Iowa in 2004 was Jacob. Other names in the top ten for baby boys were Ethan, Logan, Andrew, Samuel, Tyler, William, Dylan, Alexander and Michael. On the other end of the spectrum, the Health Department released data which shows heart disease is the number one cause of death in Iowa. In 2004, nearly 72-hundred Iowans died of heart disease. The second leading cause of death was cancer, which claimed over 62-hundred lives. A total of 26-thousand-seven-hundred-95 people died in Iowa last year. But the good news is there were more over 11-thousand more births than deaths in Iowa in 2004.