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 recorded births 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 birth records mark 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 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, 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

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.