1920s Baby Names

6,902 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

#261
Hattie Hattie is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "home ruler."
16,473 in the 1920s
#263
Lula Lula has no single parent — it shortens Louise, Lucille and Tallulah alike, and our data marks it reviving, ranking 1306th in England and Wales against 1938th in the United States.
16,425 in the 1920s
#264
Verna Verna means springtime, from the Latin for spring — and our data marks it reviving, though from a low base at 3464th in the United States on a 1918 peak of 1,885.
16,419 in the 1920s
#267
Cora Cora is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "maiden," from kore.
16,222 in the 1920s
#270
Claire Claire is a girl's name of French origin meaning "clear" or "bright," from the Latin clarus.
15,650 in the 1920s
#271
Constance Constance is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "steadfastness," one of the abstract virtue names the early Church favored.
15,635 in the 1920s
#273
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.
15,585 in the 1920s
#275
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.
15,518 in the 1920s
#278
Ada Ada is a girl's name with two origins. In Germanic it is a short form of names beginning with adal, noble; in Hebrew, Adah means "adornment" and belongs to two women in Genesis.
15,212 in the 1920s
#280
Mamie Mamie has no single parent — it shortens Mary, Margaret and Miriam alike, and Mary's own meaning has never been established, so the name inherits an unresolved question three ways.
14,890 in the 1920s
#283
Lola Lola is a girl's name of Spanish origin meaning "sorrows."
14,746 in the 1920s
#285
Rosie Rosie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "rose."
14,409 in the 1920s
#286
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.
14,327 in the 1920s
#287
Rachel Rachel is a girl's name from Hebrew meaning ewe, borne by Jacob's wife in Genesis.
14,274 in the 1920s
#291
Mable Mable means lovable, and the name lost its front end — it began as Amabel, and English wore the initial A away entirely, which is the same process that turned an ewt into a newt.
14,096 in the 1920s
#292
Flora Flora is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "flower," the Roman goddess whose festival was among the least decorous in the calendar.
14,025 in the 1920s
#294
Daisy Daisy is a girl's name of English origin naming the flower, and its meaning is unusually literal: daisy comes from the Old English dægesege, "day's eye," because the flower opens its petals at dawn and closes them at dusk.
13,730 in the 1920s
#296
Sally Sally is a girl's name meaning princess, a pet form of Sarah reached by medieval rhyming.
13,533 in the 1920s
#297
Marcella Marcella means dedicated to Mars, and our data marks it reviving — 948th in the United States, 1386th in England and Wales, 1507th in Canada and 6569th in France, from a peak more than a century old.
13,455 in the 1920s
#300
Bette
13,285 in the 1920s
#303
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.
12,837 in the 1920s
#304
Caroline Caroline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man," the French feminine of Charles by way of the Latin Carolus.
12,707 in the 1920s
#308
Sophie Sophie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "wisdom," the French form of Sophia.
12,581 in the 1920s
#309
Nora Nora is a girl's name that developed as a short form of longer names, chiefly Honora and Eleanor, and is now used independently.
12,419 in the 1920s
#310
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.
12,400 in the 1920s
#311
Estelle Estelle means star, and France and the United States rank it within 55 places of each other — 518th and 573rd — which is unusually close for a French name in an English-speaking market.
12,345 in the 1920s
#312
Carmen Carmen has two unrelated sources — the Latin word for a song, and a Spanish Marian title from Mount Carmel in Israel.
12,335 in the 1920s
#313
Rebecca Rebecca is a girl's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is unsettled, and the standard gloss involves a rope for tying cattle.
12,328 in the 1920s
#314
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.
12,285 in the 1920s
#315
Eula Eula means well-spoken, and the Greek behind it is precise — eu plus lalein, to speak well, so the name praises how someone talks rather than what they say or think.
12,265 in the 1920s
#316
Susie Susie means lily, shortened from Susan, and the Hebrew word was borrowed from Egyptian — where it may have named a lotus rather than a lily, which changes the flower entirely.
12,258 in the 1920s
#318
Eloise Eloise is a girl's name of French origin, from the medieval Héloïse.
11,972 in the 1920s
#322
Janice Janice is a girl's name usually credited to a 1899 novel, though our records carry it from 1894 — five years before the book.
11,831 in the 1920s
#324
Maggie Maggie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "pearl."
11,775 in the 1920s
#326
Antoinette Antoinette means little Antoine, and the meaning usually given for the parent name — flower — is a false etymology.
11,590 in the 1920s
#330
Nina Nina is a girl's name with several unrelated origins.
11,351 in the 1920s
#331
Imogene
11,310 in the 1920s
#332
Rosalie Rosalie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "rose."
11,308 in the 1920s
#333
Lorene Lorene reaches the laurel by the long way round — Laurentum was a town named for its bay trees, and the personal name says which town someone came from rather than which plant crowned them.
11,298 in the 1920s
#336
Patsy Patsy serves both Patricia and Patrick, and it is 94 percent female in our records — the male use survives mainly in Ireland, where Patsy is still an ordinary man's name rather than a woman's name at all.
11,123 in the 1920s
#341
Olive Olive is a girl's name of Latin origin taken from the tree, whose name comes from oliva.
10,977 in the 1920s
#342
Sadie Sadie is a girl's name that began as a pet form of Sarah, the Hebrew name meaning "princess" or "noblewoman."
10,916 in the 1920s
#346
Regina Regina is the Latin word for a queen, taken unchanged, and it is still the legal abbreviation in British courts — every criminal case against a defendant is formally Regina versus the accused.
10,690 in the 1920s
#348
Victoria Victoria is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "victory."
10,601 in the 1920s
#350
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.
10,476 in the 1920s
#351
Della Della has no single parent — it shortens Adela, Delia and Adelaide alike, and our data marks it reviving, at 563rd in the United States and 1010th in Scotland.
10,423 in the 1920s
#352
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.
10,414 in the 1920s
#354
Bettie
10,362 in the 1920s

What made a 1920s name

Nothing about the sound of it. A name is on this page because children in the United States were registered with it between 1920 and 1929, and its position is simply how many. Every list of "1920s 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.