1920s Baby Names

6,994 names were given to children in the United States between 1920 and 1929, 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

#845
Birdie Birdie is a girl's name meaning "little bird," formed from the English word bird with the affectionate ending -ie.
2,202 in the 1920s
#851
Elena Elena is a girl's name of Greek origin, the Italian, Spanish, and Russian form of Helen.
2,169 in the 1920s
#852
Leora
2,165 in the 1920s
#853
Harriette
2,163 in the 1920s
#854
Gilda
2,160 in the 1920s
#855
Earlene
2,144 in the 1920s
#858
Madeleine Madeleine is a girl's name meaning "of Magdala," a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee, and it is a place name rather than a description.
2,121 in the 1920s
#859
Verda
2,120 in the 1920s
#863
Faith Faith is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "trust" or "belief," one of the virtue names the Puritans put into use in the sixteenth century.
2,104 in the 1920s
#864
Isabella Isabella is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath," a Spanish and Italian form of Elizabeth that developed through Occitan and Old Spanish in the medieval period.
2,095 in the 1920s
#865
Rosalind
2,093 in the 1920s
#867
Tessie
2,088 in the 1920s
#868
Delphine Delphine means of Delphi, and the dolphin reading is not a coincidence — the Greeks connected the oracle site and the animal through a word for a womb, so both descend from the same root.
2,087 in the 1920s
#869
Angie Angie means messenger, and the Greek root behind it named someone carrying news — the wings and choirs of later Christianity all grew from an ordinary occupational word.
2,079 in the 1920s
#870
Retha
2,078 in the 1920s
#871
Leta
2,072 in the 1920s
#872
Rae
2,068 in the 1920s
#873
Monica Monica is a girl's name whose meaning is unknown, and whose saint — the mother of Augustine — came from Roman North Africa, so the name may be Berber rather than Latin or Greek at all.
2,067 in the 1920s
#874
Julie Julie is a girl's name, the French form of Julia, from a Roman family name of uncertain origin.
2,067 in the 1920s
#879
Erna
2,041 in the 1920s
#880
Enid
2,039 in the 1920s
#881
Wilhelmina
2,038 in the 1920s
#883
Emogene
2,032 in the 1920s
#886
Millicent
2,014 in the 1920s
#889
Edwina
2,007 in the 1920s
#890
Carole Carole is a girl's name meaning free man, the French spelling of Carol.
2,004 in the 1920s
#891
Beverley
1,997 in the 1920s
#894
Jenny Jenny began as a pet form of Jane, not Jennifer — the two attached to each other only in the twentieth century, and Jennifer was almost unknown outside Cornwall before 1900.
1,992 in the 1920s
#895
Stephanie Stephanie is a girl's name from the Greek for crown or garland, the feminine of Stephen.
1,988 in the 1920s
#896
Vernice
1,984 in the 1920s
#897
Maureen Maureen is the Irish Máirín, a diminutive of Máire, which is itself the Irish form of Mary.
1,981 in the 1920s
#898
Theda
1,981 in the 1920s
#899
Rubye
1,975 in the 1920s
#900
Elisabeth Elisabeth is a girl's name meaning God is my oath, and the s-spelling is the older one — it follows the Greek and German, while the English z is a later change.
1,967 in the 1920s
#901
Kate Kate is a girl's name of Greek origin, a short form of Katherine whose meaning has never been established.
1,966 in the 1920s
#903
Laurel Laurel names the plant directly, which sets it apart from Lora and Loren on this site — those reach the laurel through a Roman town, while this one is simply the tree.
1,958 in the 1920s
#905
Elda
1,955 in the 1920s
#907
Dana Dana is a name with several unrelated sources — a Danish origin, a Hebrew feminine of Daniel, and an Irish mother goddess.
1,945 in the 1920s
#912
Alvina
1,941 in the 1920s
#913
Ima
1,939 in the 1920s
#914
Alfreda
1,938 in the 1920s
#915
Myrna
1,937 in the 1920s
#916
Syble
1,933 in the 1920s
#919
Camille Camille is a unisex name of Latin origin, from a Roman word for a young attendant at religious ceremonies.
1,919 in the 1920s
#921
Manuela
1,912 in the 1920s
#925
Valeria Valeria is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "strong" or "healthy."
1,901 in the 1920s
#927
Claudine Claudine is a French girl's name meaning lame, from a Roman family name.
1,880 in the 1920s
#928
Vada
1,877 in the 1920s

What Made a 1920s Name

Children in the United States were registered with it between 1920 and 1929. 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.