1900s Baby Names

5,549 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

#145
Charlotte Charlotte is a girl's name of French origin meaning "free man," the feminine form of Charles, itself from the Germanic name Karl.
6,199 in the 1900s
#146
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.
6,198 in the 1900s
#147
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.
6,126 in the 1900s
#148
Olive Olive is a girl's name of Latin origin taken from the tree, whose name comes from oliva.
6,058 in the 1900s
#149
Flora Flora is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "flower," the Roman goddess whose festival was among the least decorous in the calendar.
6,038 in the 1900s
#150
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.
6,002 in the 1900s
#151
Della Della has no single parent — it shortens Adela, Delia and Adelaide alike, and our data marks it reviving, at 563rd in the United States and 1010th in Scotland.
5,964 in the 1900s
#152
Lola Lola is a girl's name of Spanish origin meaning "sorrows."
5,964 in the 1900s
#153
Effie Effie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "well-spoken."
5,902 in the 1900s
#154
Leo Leo is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "lion."
5,784 in the 1900s
#155
Nancy Nancy is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "grace."
5,738 in the 1900s
#156
Nettie Nettie is a suffix that became a name — it is the tail end of Antoinette, Jeanette and Annette, cut loose and used on its own, so it began as the part of a name that carried no meaning at all.
5,680 in the 1900s
#157
Ollie Ollie is a name of Norse origin meaning "ancestor's descendant."
5,677 in the 1900s
#158
May May has three separate sources that English cannot tell apart — the month, the hawthorn blossom that opens in it, and a short form of Mary and Margaret.
5,593 in the 1900s
#159
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.
5,570 in the 1900s
#160
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.
5,508 in the 1900s
#161
Lottie Lottie is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man."
5,492 in the 1900s
#162
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.
5,454 in the 1900s
#163
Sallie Sallie means princess, and it reached English through a sound swap — Sarah became Sally the way Mary became Molly, with the r softening to an l in ordinary speech.
5,311 in the 1900s
#164
Katie Katie is a girl's name of Greek origin, a diminutive of Katherine whose meaning has never been settled.
5,309 in the 1900s
#165
Genevieve Genevieve is a girl's name of Gaulish origin whose meaning is not settled.
5,292 in the 1900s
#166
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.
5,264 in the 1900s
#167
Lydia Lydia is a girl's name meaning "woman from Lydia," an ancient kingdom in what is now western Turkey.
5,247 in the 1900s
#168
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.
5,232 in the 1900s
#169
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.
5,158 in the 1900s
#170
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.
5,151 in the 1900s
#171
Clyde Clyde took nothing from Bonnie and Clyde.
5,093 in the 1900s
#172
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.
5,081 in the 1900s
#173
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.
5,055 in the 1900s
#174
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.
5,048 in the 1900s
#175
Daniel Daniel is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my judge," from Daniyyel.
5,048 in the 1900s
#176
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.
5,040 in the 1900s
#177
Goldie
5,009 in the 1900s
#178
Vivian Vivian is a name of Latin origin meaning "alive" or "lively," from vivus.
4,973 in the 1900s
#179
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.
4,897 in the 1900s
#180
Lizzie Lizzie means my God is an oath, and the oath is the point — Elisheva names a covenant rather than a feeling, which is why the name belonged to the wife of a priest in Exodus.
4,836 in the 1900s
#181
Rosie Rosie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "rose."
4,833 in the 1900s
#182
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.
4,792 in the 1900s
#183
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.
4,783 in the 1900s
#184
Jesse Jesse is a name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is debated.
4,699 in the 1900s
#185
Ora Ora has three unrelated sources — the Latin imperative meaning pray, the Hebrew for light, and an Albanian word for hour — and our data marks it reviving across three markets.
4,642 in the 1900s
#186
Donald Donald is a boy's name from the Scottish Gaelic Dòmhnall, meaning world ruler.
4,632 in the 1900s
#187
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.
4,630 in the 1900s
#188
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.
4,619 in the 1900s
#189
Harriet Harriet is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "home ruler."
4,610 in the 1900s
#190
Johnnie Johnnie means God is gracious, a pet form of John.
4,594 in the 1900s
#191
Kenneth Kenneth is a boy's name anglicizing two separate Gaelic names, one meaning born of fire and one meaning handsome.
4,591 in the 1900s
#192
Marian Marian is a girl's name that either joins Mary and Ann or diminutives Mary alone — the sources disagree.
4,588 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.