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

#193
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
#194
Lucile Lucile means light, and France ranks it 467th while the United States has it at 5,006th — a French name that America had and lost, having peaked there in 1917.
4,571 in the 1900s
#195
Essie Essie shortens two names with nothing in common — Esther, whose root is probably Babylonian, and Estelle, which is the Latin for a star.
4,549 in the 1900s
#196
Oscar Oscar is a boy's name with two competing origins: the Irish os, deer, plus cara, friend, giving "deer lover," or the Old Norse Ásgeirr, meaning "god's spear."
4,535 in the 1900s
#197
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.
4,514 in the 1900s
#198
Jane Jane is a girl's name from the Hebrew for God is gracious, the English feminine of John.
4,508 in the 1900s
#199
Eddie Eddie is a boy's name, the pet form of Edward or Edwin, meaning wealth.
4,495 in the 1900s
#200
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.
4,473 in the 1900s
#201
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 been saying to each other all along.
4,465 in the 1900s
#202
Peter Peter is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "rock."
4,381 in the 1900s
#203
Leroy Leroy is a boy's name that is simply the French for the king, taken as one word.
4,305 in the 1900s
#204
Caroline Caroline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man," the French feminine of Charles by way of the Latin Carolus.
4,276 in the 1900s
#205
Iva
4,257 in the 1900s
#206
Sara Sara is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "princess" or "noblewoman."
4,215 in the 1900s
#207
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.
4,210 in the 1900s
#208
Stanley Stanley is a boy's name of Old English origin meaning "stony clearing."
4,185 in the 1900s
#209
Maria Maria is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, the Latin and Greek form of Miryam.
4,174 in the 1900s
#210
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.
4,080 in the 1900s
#211
Lewis Lewis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior," the English form of Louis.
4,060 in the 1900s
#212
Rebecca Rebecca is a girl's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is unsettled, and the standard gloss involves a rope for tying cattle.
4,059 in the 1900s
#213
Wilma Wilma means resolute protection, and The Flintstones did nothing for it.
4,022 in the 1900s
#214
Benjamin Benjamin is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "son of the right hand," from Binyamin.
4,009 in the 1900s
#215
Etta Etta is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "home ruler."
4,003 in the 1900s
#216
Barbara Barbara is a girl's name from the Greek for foreign or strange, the feminine of the word that gives us barbarian.
3,999 in the 1900s
#217
Rachel Rachel is a girl's name from Hebrew meaning ewe, borne by Jacob's wife in Genesis.
3,979 in the 1900s
#218
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.
3,977 in the 1900s
#219
Kathleen Kathleen is a girl's name anglicizing the Irish Caitlín, a form of Catherine, and it inherits that name's unknown meaning.
3,924 in the 1900s
#220
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.
3,909 in the 1900s
#221
Christine Christine is a girl's name from the Latin for a follower of Christ, the French form of Christina.
3,906 in the 1900s
#222
Frederick Frederick is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "peaceful ruler."
3,905 in the 1900s
#223
Geneva Geneva is not named after the Swiss city — it is a form of Genevieve, whose own meaning is unsettled, and the city's name comes from a Celtic word for a bend or estuary entirely separately.
3,861 in the 1900s
#224
Sophie Sophie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "wisdom," the French form of Sophia.
3,844 in the 1900s
#225
Juanita Juanita is a girl's name meaning God is gracious, the Spanish diminutive of Juana.
3,837 in the 1900s
#226
Chester Chester is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "fortress" or "walled camp."
3,830 in the 1900s
#227
Claude Claude is a name from a Roman family name meaning lame, one of very few widely used names with an unflattering literal sense.
3,763 in the 1900s
#228
Nina Nina is a girl's name with several unrelated origins.
3,743 in the 1900s
#229
Naomi Naomi is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "pleasantness," from No'omi.
3,700 in the 1900s
#230
Victoria Victoria is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "victory."
3,692 in the 1900s
#231
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.
3,664 in the 1900s
#232
Erma Erma is the only name in this group recorded in a single market across its whole history — every one of its 55,187 births is American, and it charts nowhere else in any year on record.
3,623 in the 1900s
#233
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.
3,528 in the 1900s
#234
Mollie Mollie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, a diminutive of Mary reached through a chain of medieval sound shifts.
3,480 in the 1900s
#235
Ola
3,452 in the 1900s
#236
Susan Susan is a girl's name from a Hebrew word for lily, taken in turn from an Egyptian word for lotus.
3,447 in the 1900s
#237
Flossie
3,410 in the 1900s
#238
Nannie
3,391 in the 1900s
#239
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.
3,363 in the 1900s
#240
Norma Norma is a girl's name that appears to have been invented for an opera — Bellini's Norma of 1831 — and it was the birth name of Marilyn Monroe, who appears elsewhere in these pages under the name that replaced it.
3,341 in the 1900s

What Made a 1900s Name

Children in the United States were registered with it between 1900 and 1909. 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.