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

#559
Aubrey Aubrey is a name of Germanic origin meaning "elf ruler."
4,779 in the 1920s
#560
Carmella
4,761 in the 1920s
#561
Rhoda
4,761 in the 1920s
#562
Rena
4,752 in the 1920s
#563
Deloris
4,748 in the 1920s
#565
Margery
4,722 in the 1920s
#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
#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
#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
#653
Clair
3,539 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

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.