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

#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
#243
Victoria Victoria is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "victory."
2,479 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
#245
Sophie Sophie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "wisdom," the French form of Sophia.
2,424 in the 1890s
#246
Lucile Lucile means light, and France ranks it 467th while the United States has it at 5006th — a French name that America had and lost, having peaked there in 1917.
2,412 in the 1890s
#247
Irma Irma means whole or complete, and it is the surviving fragment of much longer Germanic names — Irmgard and Irmintrud both begin with it, and only the first element outlasted them.
2,407 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
#249
Ina
2,397 in the 1890s
#250
Thelma Thelma is a girl's name invented for a novel in 1887, and the Greek word it was probably built from means "will" or "volition."
2,396 in the 1890s
#251
Celia Celia is a girl's name of Latin origin from the Roman family name Caelius, whose meaning is disputed between "heaven" and a much older Etruscan word.
2,373 in the 1890s
#252
Doris Doris is a girl's name from Greek mythology, where she is a sea nymph and the mother of the fifty Nereids.
2,363 in the 1890s
#253
Ed
2,356 in the 1890s
#254
Josie Josie is a girl's name that began as a pet form of Josephine, and so means "he will add," inherited from the Hebrew Yosef.
2,334 in the 1890s
#255
Alberta Alberta means noble and bright, and a Canadian province carries it — Alberta was named for Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, whose full name was Louise Caroline Alberta.
2,327 in the 1890s
#256
Bernard Bernard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave as a bear.
2,320 in the 1890s
#257
Leslie Leslie is a Scottish place name turned surname turned given name, and it has crossed sexes: about 71 percent of the births in our records are female, though the name began firmly male and remains so in Britain.
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
#260
Winifred Winifred is two names that English collapsed into one — the Welsh Gwenfrewi and the Anglo-Saxon Winfrid, unrelated in every element, and our data marks the result reviving with England setting its peak this year.
2,293 in the 1890s
#261
Freda Freda means peace, and it is a fragment of several longer names — Winifred, Frederica and Alfreda all shorten to it, so which one a Freda descends from usually cannot be recovered.
2,289 in the 1890s
#262
Janie Janie means God is gracious, shortened from Jane — and Jane is the English feminine of John, which makes it part of the largest name family in Europe by a considerable margin.
2,272 in the 1890s
#263
Madeline Madeline is a girl's name meaning "of Magdala," a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee whose name comes from the Hebrew migdal, a tower.
2,242 in the 1890s
#264
Patrick Patrick is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "nobleman."
2,233 in the 1890s
#265
Marian Marian is a girl's name that either joins Mary and Ann or diminutives Mary alone — the sources disagree.
2,194 in the 1890s
#266
Ira Ira means watchful, and it is 12 percent female in our records despite being a man's name in the Hebrew Bible — one of David's priests carries it in Samuel.
2,171 in the 1890s
#267
Callie Callie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "beautiful."
2,162 in the 1890s
#268
Philip Philip is a boy's name from Greek elements meaning lover of horses.
2,153 in the 1890s
#269
Luella
2,151 in the 1890s
#270
Winnie Winnie is a girl's name of Welsh origin meaning "blessed reconciliation."
2,150 in the 1890s
#271
Leon Leon is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "lion."
2,149 in the 1890s
#272
Nell Nell is a girl's name that reached its modern form through a medieval habit of mishearing, from "mine Ellen" run together.
2,138 in the 1890s
#273
Vivian Vivian is a name of Latin origin meaning "alive" or "lively," from vivus.
2,123 in the 1890s
#274
Archie Archie is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "genuine and bold."
2,116 in the 1890s
#275
Velma Velma is an invented name with no root at all — it appears in nineteenth-century America built on the pattern of Selma and Thelma, and the Germanic derivations offered for it were attached afterwards.
2,099 in the 1890s
#276
Mayme
2,098 in the 1890s
#277
Naomi Naomi is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "pleasantness," from No'omi.
2,074 in the 1890s
#278
Selma Selma may have been invented by a forger — the name appears in Macpherson's Ossian poems of the 1760s, which he presented as ancient Gaelic epic and largely wrote himself.
2,067 in the 1890s
#279
Dewey
2,062 in the 1890s
#280
Isabel Isabel is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath."
2,047 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
#283
Tillie
2,009 in the 1890s
#284
Millie Millie is a girl's name that began as a pet form of longer names — chiefly Millicent, Mildred, Amelia and Camilla — and is now given in its own right.
1,959 in the 1890s
#285
Fern Fern seed was believed to make you invisible, and Shakespeare has a character say so — ferns produce spores rather than visible seeds, so the seed itself was thought to be unseeable.
1,957 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
#287
Rena
1,945 in the 1890s
#288
Kathleen Kathleen is a girl's name anglicizing the Irish Caitlín, a form of Catherine, and it inherits that name's genuinely unknown meaning.
1,942 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.