1880s Baby Names

3,546 names were given to children in the United States between 1880 and 1889, ranked below by how many.

A name's place is its total across those ten years. Names that appear in only some of the decade say so, because a name recorded once is a different fact from one recorded every year.

All Girls Boys Unisex

Rankings for

#193
Homer Homer means hostage, which makes it the third pledge name in this group alongside Gage and Giselle — and the ancient tradition that the poet was blind may have been read backward out of a dialect word rather than recorded from life.
2,213 in the 1880s
#194
Theodore Theodore is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "gift of God," formed from theos, meaning god, and doron, meaning gift.
2,176 in the 1880s
#195
Augusta
2,163 in the 1880s
#196
Leo Leo is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "lion."
2,159 in the 1880s
#197
Leona Leona means lioness, and our data marks it reviving across six markets — the United States 429th, France 556th, Scotland 631st, Ireland 705th and England and Wales 716th, all within 290 places.
2,151 in the 1880s
#198
Leonard Leonard is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "lion-strong," and its saint is the patron of prisoners and of women in labor.
2,144 in the 1880s
#199
Eleanor Eleanor is a girl's name that traces back to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the twelfth-century queen of France and later England, whose own name, Aliénor, is widely explained as "the other Aenor," distinguishing her from her mother, also named Aenor.
2,136 in the 1880s
#200
Iva
2,132 in the 1880s
#201
Rachel Rachel is a girl's name from Hebrew meaning ewe, borne by Jacob's wife in Genesis.
2,128 in the 1880s
#202
Sara Sara is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "princess" or "noblewoman."
2,127 in the 1880s
#203
Amy Amy is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "beloved," and unusually the name is a past participle — someone who has been loved rather than someone lovable.
2,127 in the 1880s
#204
Anne Anne is a girl's name from the Hebrew Hannah, meaning favor or grace.
2,126 in the 1880s
#205
Ann Ann is a girl's name from the Hebrew Hannah, meaning grace or favor, and the spelling without the final e.
2,104 in the 1880s
#206
Nina Nina is a girl's name with several unrelated origins.
2,098 in the 1880s
#207
Dorothy Dorothy is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "gift of God."
2,088 in the 1880s
#208
Alexander Alexander is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "defender of men," from alexein, to defend, and aner, man.
2,081 in the 1880s
#209
Lola Lola is a girl's name of Spanish origin meaning "sorrows."
2,054 in the 1880s
#210
August August is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "venerable" or "majestic," from augustus.
2,012 in the 1880s
#211
Harold Harold is a boy's name from Norse and Old English elements meaning army ruler, and it belongs to the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, killed at Hastings in 1066.
2,001 in the 1880s
#212
Allen Allen is a boy's name whose meaning is genuinely unknown — rock, handsome and deer have all been proposed from an unidentified Breton source.
1,998 in the 1880s
#213
Lela Lela means night on the Arabic reading, and that connects it to one of the oldest love stories in the world — Layla and Majnun, retold in Persian verse eight centuries ago.
1,920 in the 1880s
#214
Beatrice Beatrice is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "she who brings happiness."
1,900 in the 1880s
#215
Josie Josie is a girl's name that began as a pet form of Josephine, and so means "he will add," inherited from the Hebrew Yosef.
1,884 in the 1880s
#216
Sophia Sophia is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "wisdom," taken directly from the Greek word sophía.
1,865 in the 1880s
#217
Allie Allie means noble, and it serves three different names at once — Alice, Allison and Alexandra all shorten to it, so which one a given Allie belongs to cannot be read off the name itself.
1,845 in the 1880s
#218
Estelle Estelle means star, and France and the United States rank it within 55 places of each other — 518th and 573rd — which is unusually close for a French name in an English-speaking market.
1,841 in the 1880s
#219
Mayme
1,841 in the 1880s
#220
Archie Archie is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "genuine and bold."
1,827 in the 1880s
#221
Barbara Barbara is a girl's name from the Greek for foreign or strange, the feminine of the word that gives us barbarian.
1,820 in the 1880s
#222
Evelyn Evelyn is a girl's name of English and French origin meaning "desired" or "wished for".
1,817 in the 1880s
#223
Eddie Eddie is a boy's name, the pet form of Edward or Edwin, meaning wealth.
1,746 in the 1880s
#224
Philip Philip is a boy's name from Greek elements meaning lover of horses.
1,741 in the 1880s
#225
Maria Maria is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, the Latin and Greek form of Miryam.
1,732 in the 1880s
#226
Stephen Stephen is a boy's name from the Greek for crown or garland, borne by the first Christian martyr.
1,684 in the 1880s
#227
Horace Horace has no reliable meaning — the Roman family name Horatius resists derivation, and France ranks it 2765th against the United States at 6218th, so the poet's name is now used more readily in French than in English.
1,650 in the 1880s
#228
Inez Inez means chaste, and the Spanish spelling hides a Greek original — Agnes became Inés because Spanish dropped the initial vowel sound, so the two look unrelated and are the same name.
1,633 in the 1880s
#229
Clifford Clifford is a boy's name from an English place name meaning a ford by a cliff — a river crossing below a steep bank.
1,630 in the 1880s
#230
Sidney Sidney is a name of Old English origin meaning "wide meadow."
1,619 in the 1880s
#231
Bernard Bernard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave as a bear.
1,616 in the 1880s
#232
Anthony Anthony is a boy's name from the Roman family name Antonius, whose meaning is genuinely unknown — it is probably Etruscan rather than Latin.
1,611 in the 1880s
#233
Julius Julius means downy-bearded, and the family claimed descent from Venus — the Julii traced themselves to Iulus, son of Aeneas, which is the genealogy Virgil wrote the Aeneid to dignify.
1,610 in the 1880s
#234
Essie Essie shortens two names with nothing in common — Esther, whose root is probably Babylonian, and Estelle, which is the Latin for a star.
1,589 in the 1880s
#235
Warren Warren is a boy's name from a Norman place name, and it is the second-strongest revival we hold — it peaked in 1921 and now ranks 240th in the United States on 1,493 births, a century later.
1,580 in the 1880s
#236
Leroy Leroy is a boy's name that is simply the French for the king, taken as one word.
1,574 in the 1880s
#237
Callie Callie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "beautiful."
1,553 in the 1880s
#238
Delia Delia means of Delos, and it is a title for Artemis rather than a name in itself — she was born on that island, so calling her Delia is like calling someone the Nazarene.
1,546 in the 1880s
#239
Mable Mable means lovable, and the name lost its front end — it began as Amabel, and English wore the initial A away entirely, which is the same process that turned an ewt into a newt.
1,544 in the 1880s
#240
Alta
1,528 in the 1880s

What made a 1880s name

Nothing about the sound of it. A name is on this page because children in the United States were registered with it between 1880 and 1889, and its position is simply how many. Every list of "1880s names" you will find elsewhere is somebody's sense of the period; this one is the register.

Why Some Names Only Cover Part of the Decade

A name that appears in three of the ten years either arrived partway through or faded out — and either is more interesting than the total on its own. The statistics offices do not publish names given to very few children in a year, so a gap can also mean the count dropped below the threshold rather than to nothing.

Where to Go Next

Open any name to see its full curve — most of these have a hundred and forty years of it. Or compare the ends of the same measurement: the most popular names now and the rarest.