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

#241
Will Will means will-helmet, and the compound is stranger than it looks — the Germanic joins desire to a piece of armor, so the name reads as protection by determination.
3,316 in the 1900s
#242
Tom Tom is a boy's name of Aramaic origin meaning "twin," a short form of Thomas used as a full name across Europe.
3,312 in the 1900s
#243
Bernard Bernard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave as a bear.
3,301 in the 1900s
#244
Sally Sally is a girl's name meaning princess, a pet form of Sarah reached by medieval rhyming.
3,294 in the 1900s
#245
Norman Norman means a Northman — a Viking.
3,199 in the 1900s
#246
Olga Olga is a Norse name in Russian dress — Helga traveled east with the Varangians and became Olga, so the patron saint of Kyiv and Moscow carries a Scandinavian word meaning holy.
3,172 in the 1900s
#247
Edgar Edgar is a boy's name meaning wealthy spear, and it is one of very few Old English names still in wide use.
3,154 in the 1900s
#248
Harvey Harvey is a boy's name of Breton origin meaning "battle worthy."
3,104 in the 1900s
#249
Alta
3,096 in the 1900s
#250
Estella Estella means star, and Dickens chose the name deliberately — Great Expectations gives it to a girl raised to be beautiful and unreachable, which is what a star is.
3,068 in the 1900s
#251
Ben Ben is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "son," used both as a short form of Benjamin and as a name in its own right.
3,034 in the 1900s
#252
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.
2,971 in the 1900s
#253
Leon Leon is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "lion."
2,942 in the 1900s
#254
Isabel Isabel is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath."
2,937 in the 1900s
#255
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.
2,937 in the 1900s
#256
Amanda Amanda is a girl's name from the Latin for she who must be loved, and one of the few names on this site that can be dated to a specific literary invention — Colley Cibber used it for a character in his 1696 play Love's Last Shift.
2,923 in the 1900s
#257
Homer Homer means hostage, which makes it the third pledge name in this group alongside Gage and Giselle — and the ancient tradition that the poet was blind may have been read backward out of a dialect word rather than recorded from life.
2,921 in the 1900s
#258
Frieda
2,897 in the 1900s
#259
Luella
2,895 in the 1900s
#260
Matilda Matilda is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "mighty in battle."
2,892 in the 1900s
#261
Cleo Cleo is a name of Greek origin meaning "glory" or "fame."
2,878 in the 1900s
#262
Melvin Melvin is a boy's name from a Scottish place name, and the gentle chieftain reading usually given for it is an invention — the source is a Norman family who took their name from Malleville in France.
2,873 in the 1900s
#263
Luther Luther means army of the people, and its weight comes from a surname rather than a saint — Martin Luther's family name became a given name across the Protestant world, and then across Black America.
2,871 in the 1900s
#264
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.
2,855 in the 1900s
#265
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.
2,853 in the 1900s
#266
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.
2,848 in the 1900s
#267
Philip Philip is a boy's name from Greek elements meaning lover of horses.
2,823 in the 1900s
#268
Cecelia Cecelia means blind, and the saint who carries it became the patron of music through what looks like a misreading — a line in her acta about music playing at her wedding was later taken to mean she made it.
2,793 in the 1900s
#269
Audrey Audrey is a girl's name of Old English origin meaning "noble strength," from Æthelthryth.
2,789 in the 1900s
#270
Allie Allie means noble, and it serves three different names at once — Alice, Allison and Alexandra all shorten to it, so which one a given Allie belongs to cannot be read off the name itself.
2,776 in the 1900s
#271
Jim Jim is a boy's name meaning supplanter, shortened from James — which is the same name as Jacob, split into two by Latin.
2,751 in the 1900s
#272
Elva
2,724 in the 1900s
#273
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.
2,717 in the 1900s
#274
Milton Milton means the mill settlement, and there is a second and quite separate source meaning the middle settlement — two entirely different Old English place names that ended up producing exactly the same modern spelling.
2,700 in the 1900s
#275
Ina
2,667 in the 1900s
#276
Adeline Adeline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "noble," from the element adal.
2,646 in the 1900s
#277
Bonnie Bonnie is a girl's name of Scots origin meaning "pretty" or "fine."
2,632 in the 1900s
#278
Leola
2,615 in the 1900s
#279
Hannah Hannah is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "grace" or "favor," from Channah.
2,605 in the 1900s
#280
Everett Everett is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "brave as a wild boar," from eber, boar, and hard, brave or hardy.
2,597 in the 1900s
#281
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.
2,590 in the 1900s
#282
Geraldine Geraldine was invented in a 1537 love poem — the Earl of Surrey coined it for Lady Elizabeth FitzGerald, calling her the Fair Geraldine.
2,589 in the 1900s
#283
Amy Amy is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "beloved," and unusually the name is a past participle — someone who has been loved rather than someone lovable.
2,576 in the 1900s
#284
Miriam Miriam is the origin of Mary, Maria, Marie, Maureen, Marion and Molly — the largest name family in Europe — and it still charts in all seven markets we track, with its top four inside 46 places of each other.
2,566 in the 1900s
#285
Jewell
2,525 in the 1900s
#286
Isabelle Isabelle is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath."
2,514 in the 1900s
#287
Virgie
2,508 in the 1900s
#288
Alvin Alvin means elf-friend, from an Old English name that treats elves as beings whose favor was worth having.
2,489 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.