1890s Baby Names
1,514 names were given to children in the United States between 1890 and 1899, 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.
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#2,518Octave Octave is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "eighth," the French form of the family name Octavius that Augustus was born with.33 in the 1890s 4 of 10 years
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#2,536Sonny Sonny is a boy's name of English origin meaning exactly what it looks like — son.32 in the 1890s 6 of 10 years
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#2,579Ethan Ethan is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "firm," "enduring," or "strong."31 in the 1890s 4 of 10 years
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#2,583Colin Colin has two entirely separate origins — a French pet form of Nicolas, and the Scottish Gaelic Cailean.30 in the 1890s 5 of 10 years
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#2,587Malachi Malachi is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "my messenger."30 in the 1890s 5 of 10 years
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#2,599Craig Craig is a boy's name from the Gaelic word for a rock or crag, and one of the few names that is a plain landscape noun rather than a compound.30 in the 1890s 5 of 10 years
What made a 1890s name
Nothing about the sound of it. A name is on this page because children in the United States were registered with it between 1890 and 1899, and its position is simply how many. Every list of "1890s 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 The statistics offices do not publish names given to very few children in a year, so a gap can also mean the count dropped below the threshold rather than to nothing.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.