1890s Baby Names

4,411 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

#529
Pansy
719 in the 1890s
#530
Floy
718 in the 1890s
#531
Shirley Shirley is a girl's name from an English place name meaning bright clearing, and it was a boys' name until Charlotte Brontë used it for a heroine in 1849.
710 in the 1890s
#532
Constance Constance is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "steadfastness," one of the abstract virtue names the early Church favored.
706 in the 1890s
#533
Marcella Marcella means dedicated to Mars, and it is reviving — 948th in the United States, 1,386th in England and Wales, 1,507th in Canada and 6,569th in France, from a peak more than a century old.
706 in the 1890s
#534
Elijah Elijah is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "my God is Yahweh," from Eliyahu.
704 in the 1890s
#535
Golda
703 in the 1890s
#536
Cynthia Cynthia is a girl's name that began as a title for the moon goddess — it means she of Mount Cynthus, the peak on Delos where Artemis was said to have been born.
701 in the 1890s
#537
Rae
698 in the 1890s
#538
Tommie Tommie means twin, and it is one of the most evenly split names on this site — 33 percent of recorded births are female, because it serves as a short form of both Thomas and Thomasina.
697 in the 1890s
#539
Lida
694 in the 1890s
#540
Harley Harley is a name of Old English origin meaning "hare's meadow."
690 in the 1890s
#541
Frankie Frankie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "free man" or "Frenchman."
689 in the 1890s
#542
Noah Noah is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "rest" or "comfort," from Noach.
686 in the 1890s
#543
Levi Levi is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "joined" or "attached."
685 in the 1890s
#544
Nathaniel Nathaniel is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "gift of God."
684 in the 1890s
#545
Ona
681 in the 1890s
#546
Ernestine Ernestine is the feminine of the same Germanic word as Earnest in this group — eornost, the vigor of a fight.
679 in the 1890s
#547
Louie Louie is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior."
672 in the 1890s
#548
Angela Angela is a girl's name from the Greek for messenger, the word that also gives us angel.
671 in the 1890s
#549
Christopher Christopher is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "bearer of Christ," from Christos and pherein, to carry.
668 in the 1890s
#550
Leta
666 in the 1890s
#551
Georgie Georgie is a unisex name of Greek origin meaning "farmer," a diminutive of George and Georgia alike.
664 in the 1890s
#552
Jeff Jeff means peace, shortened from Geoffrey — but the first element of that compound is disputed between three different Germanic words, so only the peace half of the name is agreed on by the sources.
661 in the 1890s
#553
Polly Polly is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, a pet form of Mary whose meaning has never been settled.
661 in the 1890s
#554
Pete Pete means rock, and it began as a joke about a man's character — Jesus renames Simon as Cephas, the Aramaic for a stone, and the pun works in Greek but not in English.
651 in the 1890s
#555
Timothy Timothy is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "honoring God."
650 in the 1890s
#556
Angelina Angelina means little angel, and the Greek root behind it means a messenger — the winged being is a later idea layered onto a word for someone carrying news.
646 in the 1890s
#557
Eloise Eloise is a girl's name of French origin, from the medieval Héloïse.
641 in the 1890s
#558
Vida
641 in the 1890s
#559
Evie Evie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "life."
641 in the 1890s
#560
Zula
639 in the 1890s
#561
Louella
638 in the 1890s
#562
Phyllis Phyllis is a girl's name from the Greek for foliage, borne by a mythological princess who was turned into an almond tree.
633 in the 1890s
#563
Zora
631 in the 1890s
#564
Silas Silas is a boy's name generally understood as a Greek form of the Aramaic Seila, itself corresponding to the Hebrew Saul, meaning "asked for" or "prayed for."
631 in the 1890s
#565
Bruce Bruce is a boy's name from a Norman place name, and Scotland's most famous king carried it as an import — the Bruces came from Normandy, not from Scotland.
629 in the 1890s
#566
Wanda Wanda is a girl's name from Polish, borne by a legendary queen who drowned herself in the Vistula rather than marry a German prince.
626 in the 1890s
#567
Chloe Chloe is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "green shoot" or "young growth," referring to the first green of new crops.
622 in the 1890s
#568
Don Don is a boy's name shortened from Donald, meaning world ruler.
620 in the 1890s
#569
Fredrick Fredrick is an American respelling that ranks higher in England and Wales than in the United States — 934th against 1,730th, which reverses the usual direction for a respelling.
617 in the 1890s
#570
Grant Grant means tall or large, from a Norman French nickname — and it has nothing to do with granting or giving, which is a different word that arrived in English by a separate route.
614 in the 1890s
#571
Roger Roger is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning famous spear.
607 in the 1890s
#572
Isabell
604 in the 1890s
#573
Mabelle
604 in the 1890s
#574
Dolly
600 in the 1890s
#575
Wilson Wilson rose and fell with a presidency, and birth records show it plainly — 129 American births in 1911, then 496 in 1912, climbing to 1,381 by 1918 and back to 590 by 1920.
597 in the 1890s
#576
Tessie
595 in the 1890s

What Made a 1890s Name

Children in the United States were registered with it between 1890 and 1899. A name's position here is how many of them were.

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.