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
Russell Russell is a boy's name from a Norman nickname meaning little red, given to someone red-haired or ruddy.
4,588 in the 1900s
#194
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.
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 actually 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 genuinely 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 we hold.
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

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.