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

#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
#194
Lois Lois is a girl's name that appears once in the New Testament, in a letter naming Timothy's grandmother, and its meaning has never been established.
3,262 in the 1890s
#195
Matilda Matilda is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "mighty in battle."
3,249 in the 1890s
#196
Betty Betty is a girl's name that began as a short form of Elizabeth and is now used in its own right.
3,196 in the 1890s
#197
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.
3,184 in the 1890s
#198
Estella Estella means star, and Dickens chose the name deliberately — Great Expectations gives it to a girl raised to be beautiful and unreachable, which is what a star is.
3,174 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
#200
Marjorie Marjorie is a girl's name meaning pearl, an English form of Margaret whose modern spelling was pulled toward the herb marjoram by nothing more than a coincidence of sound.
3,171 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
#202
Essie Essie shortens two names with nothing in common — Esther, whose root is probably Babylonian, and Estelle, which is the Latin for a star.
3,143 in the 1890s
#203
Sara Sara is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "princess" or "noblewoman."
3,119 in the 1890s
#204
Violet Violet is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "purple," taken from viola, the Latin word for the purple flower.
3,076 in the 1890s
#205
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.
3,042 in the 1890s
#206
Chester Chester is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "fortress" or "walled camp."
3,039 in the 1890s
#207
Verna Verna means springtime, from the Latin for spring — and our data marks it reviving, though from a low base at 3464th in the United States on a 1918 peak of 1,885.
3,036 in the 1890s
#208
Sylvia Sylvia is a girl's name from the Latin for a forest, and the mother of Rome's founders bore it — Rhea Silvia, who was made a Vestal Virgin so she could not produce heirs.
3,025 in the 1890s
#209
Hannah Hannah is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "grace" or "favor," from Channah.
3,021 in the 1890s
#210
Kate Kate is a girl's name of Greek origin, a short form of Katherine whose meaning has never actually been established.
3,001 in the 1890s
#211
Olga Olga is a Norse name in Russian dress — Helga traveled east with the Varangians and became Olga, so the patron saint of Kyiv and Moscow carries a Scandinavian word meaning holy.
2,997 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
#213
Rosie Rosie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "rose."
2,923 in the 1890s
#214
Genevieve Genevieve is a girl's name of Gaulish origin whose meaning is not settled.
2,904 in the 1890s
#215
Flossie
2,890 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
#217
Maria Maria is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, the Latin and Greek form of Miryam.
2,866 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
#220
Alta
2,815 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
#222
Barbara Barbara is a girl's name from the Greek for foreign or strange, the feminine of the word that gives us barbarian.
2,783 in the 1890s
#223
Frieda
2,780 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
#227
Eliza Eliza is a girl's name that began as a short form of Elizabeth, and so means "God is my oath," from the Hebrew Elisheva.
2,723 in the 1890s
#228
Augusta
2,688 in the 1890s
#229
Ola
2,685 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
#231
Lulu
2,659 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
#233
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.
2,588 in the 1890s
#234
Jean Jean is a unisex name in our data: the French form of John, meaning "God is gracious," and separately a Scottish feminine form of Jane.
2,581 in the 1890s
#235
Christine Christine is a girl's name from the Latin for a follower of Christ, the French form of Christina.
2,565 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
#239
Sophia Sophia is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "wisdom," taken directly from the Greek word sophía.
2,522 in the 1890s
#240
Belle
2,512 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.