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.

All Girls Boys Unisex

Rankings for

#166
Clyde Clyde took nothing from Bonnie and Clyde.
4,090 in the 1890s
#168
Peter Peter is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "rock."
4,034 in the 1890s
#169
Floyd Floyd is the same name as Lloyd, and the F is a mistake that stuck — English had no way to say the Welsh double L, so it substituted the closest sound it had, and the substitution became a separate name.
4,033 in the 1890s
#170
Frederick Frederick is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "peaceful ruler."
3,994 in the 1890s
#171
Michael Michael is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "who is like God?" — a rhetorical question expecting the answer that no one is.
3,933 in the 1890s
#177
Lewis Lewis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior," the English form of Louis.
3,715 in the 1890s
#184
Edwin Edwin is a boy's name from Old English meaning rich friend, borne by a Northumbrian king whose fortress may have given Edinburgh its name.
3,522 in the 1890s
#188
Tom Tom is a boy's name of Aramaic origin meaning "twin," a short form of Thomas used as a full name across Europe.
3,341 in the 1890s
#193
Martin Martin is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "of Mars," borne by Saint Martin of Tours, whose cloak gave Europe the word chapel.
3,266 in the 1890s
#199
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.
3,173 in the 1890s
#201
Ben Ben is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "son," used both as a short form of Benjamin and as a name in its own right.
3,163 in the 1890s
#206
Chester Chester is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "fortress" or "walled camp."
3,039 in the 1890s
#212
Edgar Edgar is a boy's name meaning wealthy spear, and it is one of very few Old English names still in wide use.
2,992 in the 1890s
#216
Jim Jim is a boy's name meaning supplanter, shortened from James — which is the same name as Jacob, split into two by Latin.
2,887 in the 1890s
#218
Harvey Harvey is a boy's name of Breton origin meaning "battle worthy."
2,827 in the 1890s
#219
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.
2,821 in the 1890s
#221
Russell Russell is a boy's name from a Norman nickname meaning little red, given to someone red-haired or ruddy.
2,799 in the 1890s
#224
Cecil Cecil means blind, from a Roman family name, and the saint who made it famous is patron of music on the strength of one ambiguous line in her own account of her wedding day.
2,769 in the 1890s
#225
Lester Lester means from Leicester, and the spelling is the honest one — Leicester has been pronounced LES-ter for centuries, so the surname simply wrote down what people had actually been saying to each other all along.
2,762 in the 1890s
#226
Eddie Eddie is a boy's name, the pet form of Edward or Edwin, meaning wealth.
2,737 in the 1890s
#230
Luther Luther means army of the people, and its weight comes from a surname rather than a saint — Martin Luther's family name became a given name across the Protestant world, and then across Black America.
2,668 in the 1890s
#232
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.
2,647 in the 1890s
#236
Otto Otto is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "wealth" or "fortune."
2,559 in the 1890s
#237
Jacob Jacob is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "supplanter" or "holder of the heel," from Ya'aqov.
2,551 in the 1890s
#238
Leroy Leroy is a boy's name that is simply the French for the king, taken as one word.
2,544 in the 1890s
#241
Guy Guy is a boy's name from a Germanic word probably meaning wood or wide, and one of very few names to have become an ordinary English noun — through Guy Fawkes, whose effigies gave the word its modern sense.
2,498 in the 1890s
#242
Lloyd Lloyd is a boy's name from the Welsh word for gray, and the double L is a genuine Welsh consonant that English has no letter for.
2,480 in the 1890s
#244
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.
2,458 in the 1890s
#248
Hugh Hugh is a boy's name from a Germanic word for mind or spirit, brought to Britain by the Normans.
2,405 in the 1890s
#253
Ed
2,356 in the 1890s
#256
Bernard Bernard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave as a bear.
2,320 in the 1890s
#258
Theodore Theodore is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "gift of God," formed from theos, meaning god, and doron, meaning gift.
2,300 in the 1890s
#259
Stanley Stanley is a boy's name of Old English origin meaning "stony clearing."
2,297 in the 1890s
#264
Patrick Patrick is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "nobleman."
2,233 in the 1890s
#268
Philip Philip is a boy's name from Greek elements meaning lover of horses.
2,153 in the 1890s
#271
Leon Leon is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "lion."
2,149 in the 1890s
#274
Archie Archie is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "genuine and bold."
2,116 in the 1890s
#279
Dewey
2,062 in the 1890s
#281
Oliver Oliver is a boy's name that entered England with the Normans and has a genuinely disputed origin.
2,035 in the 1890s
#282
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.
2,013 in the 1890s
#286
Alexander Alexander is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "defender of men," from alexein, to defend, and aner, man.
1,954 in the 1890s
#291
Everett Everett is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "brave as a wild boar," from eber, boar, and hard, brave or hardy.
1,902 in the 1890s
#292
Norman Norman means a Northman — a Viking.
1,902 in the 1890s
#298
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.
1,814 in the 1890s
#299
Victor Victor is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "conqueror."
1,811 in the 1890s
#300
Donald Donald is a boy's name from the Scottish Gaelic Dòmhnall, meaning world ruler.
1,791 in the 1890s
#305
Milton Milton means the mill settlement, and there is a second and quite separate source meaning the middle settlement — two entirely different Old English place names that ended up producing exactly the same modern spelling.
1,745 in the 1890s
#306
Isaac Isaac is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he laughs," from Yitzhak.
1,735 in the 1890s

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.