1900s Baby Names

1,838 names were given to children in the United States between 1900 and 1909, 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

#446
Steve Steve is a boy's name, the short form of Steven or Stephen, meaning crown or garland.
1,307 in the 1900s
#448
Calvin Calvin is a boy's name of French origin meaning "little bald one," from the Latin calvus, bald.
1,291 in the 1900s
#450
Mike Mike is a boy's name, the short form of Michael, from a Hebrew question meaning who is like God.
1,281 in the 1900s
#456
August August is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "venerable" or "majestic," from augustus.
1,245 in the 1900s
#462
Clifton Clifton means the settlement by the cliff, and it is the same first element as Clifford — one describes a ford below the cliff and the other the farm on top of it.
1,202 in the 1900s
#465
Franklin Franklin means a freeholder — a man who owned his land but held no noble rank, a specific medieval class.
1,196 in the 1900s
#467
Matthew Matthew is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "gift of Yahweh," from Mattityahu.
1,188 in the 1900s
#468
Emmett Emmett is a boy's name of English origin derived from Emma — it is a matronymic surname, formed from a woman's name rather than a man's, which was unusual in medieval England.
1,187 in the 1900s
#473
Phillip Phillip is a boy's name meaning lover of horses, the doubled-l spelling of Philip.
1,161 in the 1900s
#474
Wayne Wayne is an occupational surname meaning a wagon maker, and its life as a given name follows one man — John Wayne, who was born Marion Robert Morrison and renamed by a studio.
1,158 in the 1900s
#475
Edmund Edmund was England's patron saint before George — Edmund the Martyr, king of East Anglia, was killed by a Viking army in 869 and held that position for some three hundred years before a crusader saint displaced him.
1,151 in the 1900s
#476
Abraham Abraham is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "father of many."
1,145 in the 1900s
#478
Nathaniel Nathaniel is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "gift of God."
1,143 in the 1900s
#481
Marshall Marshall began as a stable hand — the word meant a horse servant, and it climbed to become the highest rank in several armies.
1,135 in the 1900s
#482
Dave Dave ranks 2217th in England and Wales and 2469th in the United States, so the short form outranks its American peak market in a country that never recorded more than fifteen in a year.
1,133 in the 1900s
#483
Elbert
1,131 in the 1900s
#485
Clinton Clinton means the settlement on the hill, from an English place name — and the two American presidents who carried it did so by adoption and by surname, not by descent from the place.
1,122 in the 1900s
#488
Alton Alton means the settlement at the river's source, and that is more specific than the old town reading usually given — the Old English element is a spring or wellhead, not age.
1,114 in the 1900s
#489
Felix Felix is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "lucky" or "fortunate."
1,108 in the 1900s
#492
Perry Perry means at the pear tree, from an English place name — and our data marks it reviving, at 1373rd in the United States and 1681st in England and Wales.
1,095 in the 1900s
#493
Nelson Nelson means son of Neil, and the admiral made it a given name — it was a surname until Trafalgar, after which parents across the English-speaking world started using it as a first name outright.
1,064 in the 1900s
#494
Amos
1,062 in the 1900s
#495
Clayton Clayton means the settlement on clay, from an English place name that describes the ground it stood on.
1,057 in the 1900s
#498
Aaron Aaron is a boy's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is not established.
1,050 in the 1900s
#504
Tony Tony is a boy's name from the Roman family name Antonius, whose meaning has never been established.
1,034 in the 1900s
#509
Adam Adam is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "earth" or "ground," from adamah.
1,021 in the 1900s
#510
Irvin Irvin names a Scottish river valley, and the green water reading describes the water rather than the banks — Brittonic river names usually record color or behavior, not the land beside them.
1,007 in the 1900s
#511
Mark Mark is a boy's name of Latin origin, most likely meaning "of Mars," borne by the evangelist who wrote the earliest gospel.
1,001 in the 1900s
#515
Cornelius
991 in the 1900s
#516
Jake Jake is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "supplanter," a short form of Jacob that became a name in its own right.
989 in the 1900s
#517
Dennis Dennis is a boy's name that traces back to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and ecstatic release — one of the few widely used Christian names derived from a pagan deity.
988 in the 1900s
#522
Jerome Jerome is a boy's name meaning sacred name, and it belongs to the scholar who translated the Bible into Latin — the version Western Europe read for over a thousand years.
972 in the 1900s
#527
Douglas Douglas is a boy's name from the Scottish Gaelic for dark water, originally a river and then a powerful border family.
960 in the 1900s
#528
Forrest Forrest is one of only two names in this group our data marks as rising, and it is on its second life — American births ran 490 in 2018 and 862 in 2025, having collapsed from a 1994 peak twenty years before.
954 in the 1900s
#530
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.
949 in the 1900s
#531
Ted Ted is a boy's name that serves two unrelated names at once, and it exists because medieval English moved the n from "mine Edward."
947 in the 1900s
#532
Jay Jay is a name serving as an initial-letter shortening for any J name, as a bird name, and as an Indian name meaning victory.
942 in the 1900s
#534
Adolph
941 in the 1900s
#538
Roger Roger is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning famous spear.
928 in the 1900s
#541
Roscoe
916 in the 1900s
#543
Juan Juan is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is gracious."
912 in the 1900s
#544
Jess
909 in the 1900s
#549
Ervin
895 in the 1900s
#559
Gus
862 in the 1900s
#560
Antonio Antonio is a boy's name of Etruscan origin whose meaning is unknown.
860 in the 1900s
#561
Owen Owen is a boy's name of Welsh origin, the anglicized form of Owain.
860 in the 1900s
#563
Moses Moses is explained in Exodus as drawn out of the water, but the name is more likely Egyptian — mose means born of, and it is the second half of Thutmose and Ramose, where the god's name sits in front.
847 in the 1900s
#566
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.
841 in the 1900s

What made a 1900s name

Nothing about the sound of it. A name is on this page because children in the United States were registered with it between 1900 and 1909, and its position is simply how many. Every list of "1900s 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.