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

#145
Leo Leo is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "lion."
4,825 in the 1890s
#146
Charlotte Charlotte is a girl's name of French origin meaning "free man," the feminine form of Charles, itself from the Germanic name Karl.
4,771 in the 1890s
#147
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.
4,754 in the 1890s
#148
Theresa Theresa is a girl's name of uncertain meaning, the German and English spelling of Teresa.
4,735 in the 1890s
#149
Hilda Hilda means battle, and it is the surviving fragment of longer Germanic names — Hildegard, Brunhild and Matilda all contain it, and the element outlived most of the compounds it belonged to.
4,732 in the 1890s
#150
Addie Addie shortens Adelaide and Adeline alike, and both descend from the Germanic word for noble — the same adal that sits inside Alice, Allison and Albert.
4,698 in the 1890s
#151
Ann Ann is a girl's name from the Hebrew Hannah, meaning grace or favor, and the spelling without the final e.
4,688 in the 1890s
#152
Etta Etta is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "home ruler."
4,670 in the 1890s
#153
Jack Jack is a boy's name of English origin that began as a pet form of John, by way of the medieval nickname Jankin.
4,659 in the 1890s
#154
Lawrence Lawrence is a boy's name meaning from Laurentum, an ancient Italian town linked to the laurel.
4,622 in the 1890s
#155
Caroline Caroline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man," the French feminine of Charles by way of the Latin Carolus.
4,505 in the 1890s
#156
Benjamin Benjamin is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "son of the right hand," from Binyamin.
4,460 in the 1890s
#157
Eugene Eugene is a boy's name from the Greek for well-born, and it is the source of the word eugenics — a connection worth knowing, since the name long predates and has nothing to do with that movement.
4,365 in the 1890s
#158
Ora Ora has three unrelated sources — the Latin imperative meaning pray, the Hebrew for light, and an Albanian word for hour — and it is reviving across three markets.
4,312 in the 1890s
#159
Herman Herman means army man, and the German national hero Hermann is a Latin scribe's version of a Cheruscan name we cannot now recover — Arminius, the chief who destroyed three Roman legions in AD 9.
4,252 in the 1890s
#160
Lola Lola is a girl's name of Spanish origin meaning "sorrows."
4,232 in the 1890s
#161
Anne Anne is a girl's name from the Hebrew Hannah, meaning favor or grace.
4,231 in the 1890s
#162
Bernice Bernice is a girl's name meaning bringer of victory, and it is the same name as Veronica — both descend from the Greek Berenike by different routes.
4,172 in the 1890s
#163
Harriet Harriet is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "home ruler."
4,171 in the 1890s
#164
Ray Ray is a boy's name that serves as a short form of Raymond and as the English word for a beam of light.
4,127 in the 1890s
#165
Iva
4,124 in the 1890s
#166
Clyde Clyde took nothing from Bonnie and Clyde.
4,090 in the 1890s
#167
Henrietta Henrietta named a American state — Maryland was chartered for Henrietta Maria, queen to Charles I, so a French princess's middle name sits on the map of the United States.
4,045 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
#172
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.
3,892 in the 1890s
#173
Jane Jane is a girl's name from the Hebrew for God is gracious, the English feminine of John.
3,882 in the 1890s
#174
Amanda Amanda is a girl's name from the Latin for she who must be loved, and one of the few names on this site that can be dated to a specific literary invention — Colley Cibber used it for a character in his 1696 play Love's Last Shift.
3,877 in the 1890s
#175
Claude Claude is a name from a Roman family name meaning lame, one of very few widely used names with an unflattering literal sense.
3,730 in the 1890s
#176
Amelia Amelia is a girl's name most often explained as a blend of two older names: the Germanic Amalia, meaning "work" or "industrious," and the Latin Emilia, from the Roman family name Aemilius.
3,725 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
#178
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.
3,682 in the 1890s
#179
Rebecca Rebecca is a girl's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is unsettled, and the standard gloss involves a rope for tying cattle.
3,660 in the 1890s
#180
Susan Susan is a girl's name from a Hebrew word for lily, taken in turn from an Egyptian word for lotus.
3,617 in the 1890s
#181
Mollie Mollie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, a diminutive of Mary reached through a chain of medieval sound shifts.
3,609 in the 1890s
#182
Nannie
3,599 in the 1890s
#183
Goldie
3,523 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
#185
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.
3,490 in the 1890s
#186
Nina Nina is a girl's name with several unrelated origins.
3,386 in the 1890s
#187
Loretta Loretta comes from an Italian shrine, not from the laurel — Loreto is the town where the Holy House of Nazareth was said to have been carried by angels.
3,382 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
#189
Maud Maud is the same name as Maude and peaked ninety-three years later — the e-less spelling belongs to France, which set its high in 1981 while the American form was already a century past its own.
3,290 in the 1890s
#190
Rachel Rachel is a girl's name from Hebrew meaning ewe, borne by Jacob's wife in Genesis.
3,284 in the 1890s
#191
Eula Eula means well-spoken, and the Greek behind it is precise — eu plus lalein, to speak well, so the name praises how someone talks rather than what they say or think.
3,282 in the 1890s
#192
Eunice Eunice means good victory, and she is named in the New Testament as Timothy's mother — one of very few women whose faith Paul credits by name, alongside her own mother Lois.
3,277 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.