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

#566
Aileen Aileen means hazel, most likely, and the shining gloss usually given for it comes from confusion with Helen — the Norman Aveline is the likelier parent, and it has nothing to do with light.
4,648 in the 1920s
#567
Flossie
4,640 in the 1920s
#568
Bettye
4,629 in the 1920s
#570
Harriett
4,602 in the 1920s
#574
Paula Paula is a girl's name from the Latin for small or humble, the feminine of Paul.
4,564 in the 1920s
#576
Maude Maude belonged to the woman who nearly became England's first ruling queen — the Empress Matilda fought her cousin for the throne through nineteen years of civil war the chroniclers called the Anarchy.
4,546 in the 1920s
#579
Mollie Mollie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, a diminutive of Mary reached through a chain of medieval sound shifts.
4,501 in the 1920s
#583
Linda Linda is a girl's name usually read as beautiful in Spanish or as a Germanic element meaning soft or tender.
4,468 in the 1920s
#584
Leah Leah is a girl's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is disputed, most often given as "weary" but also linked to a word for wild cow.
4,453 in the 1920s
#585
Sybil
4,442 in the 1920s
#587
Yolanda Yolanda means violet, and the flower reaches it through a chain of respellings — the Greek Iolanthe became Violante in Italian by association with viola, and Spanish then rendered that form as the Yolanda we know.
4,432 in the 1920s
#589
Suzanne Suzanne is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "lily," from shoshannah.
4,390 in the 1920s
#590
Winnie Winnie is a girl's name of Welsh origin meaning "blessed reconciliation."
4,375 in the 1920s
#591
Rosetta
4,361 in the 1920s
#595
Neva
4,294 in the 1920s
#597
Lou Lou is a girl's name in France, a short form of Louise and Louis meaning "famous warrior."
4,282 in the 1920s
#599
Lenore
4,260 in the 1920s
#601
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.
4,204 in the 1920s
#603
Odessa
4,180 in the 1920s
#604
Josie Josie is a girl's name that began as a pet form of Josephine, and so means "he will add," inherited from the Hebrew Yosef.
4,159 in the 1920s
#606
Zelma
4,149 in the 1920s
#611
Loraine
4,125 in the 1920s
#612
Concetta
4,108 in the 1920s
#613
Earline
4,100 in the 1920s
#614
Avis
4,074 in the 1920s
#616
Glenna
4,018 in the 1920s
#617
Millie Millie is a girl's name that began as a pet form of longer names — chiefly Millicent, Mildred, Amelia and Camilla — and is now given in its own right.
3,978 in the 1920s
#619
Cornelia
3,965 in the 1920s
#620
Rosella
3,953 in the 1920s
#626
Dollie
3,906 in the 1920s
#629
Claudia Claudia means lame, and it comes from one of Rome's most powerful families.
3,839 in the 1920s
#630
Edythe
3,826 in the 1920s
#631
Hannah Hannah is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "grace" or "favor," from Channah.
3,811 in the 1920s
#632
Alyce
3,803 in the 1920s
#633
Letha
3,780 in the 1920s
#636
Lily Lily is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "lily flower," from lilium.
3,762 in the 1920s
#639
Dolly
3,679 in the 1920s
#641
Dixie Dixie names the American South and nobody knows why — the leading account is a French ten-dollar note printed dix in Louisiana, and the rival is the Mason-Dixon line.
3,665 in the 1920s
#642
Cynthia Cynthia is a girl's name that began as a title for the moon goddess — it means she of Mount Cynthus, the peak on Delos where Artemis was said to have been born.
3,661 in the 1920s
#644
Christina Christina is a girl's name from the Latin for a follower of Christ, and the fullest of the family that includes Christine and Kristina.
3,657 in the 1920s
#645
Wilda
3,643 in the 1920s
#649
Pearlie
3,607 in the 1920s
#655
Bernadette Bernadette is a girl's name meaning brave as a bear, and its bearer was a fourteen-year-old miller's daughter whose visions at Lourdes in 1858 turned a Pyrenean grotto into one of the most visited places on earth.
3,533 in the 1920s
#656
Hope Hope is a girl's name of Old English origin taken from the virtue, from hopian.
3,486 in the 1920s
#657
Gail Gail is a girl's name meaning my father rejoices, clipped from Abigail.
3,462 in the 1920s
#659
Madge
3,448 in the 1920s
#660
Mona Mona in Mona Lisa is not a name — it contracts ma donna, my lady, so the painting's title is closer to Madam Lisa than to anyone actually called Mona.
3,446 in the 1920s
#663
Kay Kay serves two unrelated sources — the initial of Katherine, and Sir Kay of Arthurian legend, who is Arthur's foster brother and one of the oldest figures in the whole cycle.
3,425 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.