1920s Baby Names

13,525 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

#433
Larry Larry is a boy's name, the short form of Lawrence, from a Roman name meaning of Laurentum.
7,292 in the 1920s
#434
Irvin Irvin names a Scottish river valley, and the green water reading describes the water rather than the banks — Brittonic river names usually record color or behavior, not the land beside them.
7,284 in the 1920s
#435
Antonio Antonio is a boy's name of Etruscan origin whose meaning is unknown.
7,272 in the 1920s
#436
Tommy Tommy is a boy's name of Aramaic origin meaning "twin."
7,247 in the 1920s
#437
Emil
7,238 in the 1920s
#438
Effie Effie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "well-spoken."
7,222 in the 1920s
#439
Wilfred Wilfred is a boy's name of Old English origin meaning "desiring peace."
7,198 in the 1920s
#440
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.
7,188 in the 1920s
#441
Juan Juan is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is gracious."
7,175 in the 1920s
#442
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.
7,169 in the 1920s
#443
Elbert
7,113 in the 1920s
#444
Connie Connie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "steadfast" or "constant."
7,102 in the 1920s
#445
Leola
7,097 in the 1920s
#446
Sue Sue means lily, shortened from Susan, and it is one of the steepest falls on record — from 5,306 American births in 1947 to 11, a decline by a factor of roughly 482.
7,083 in the 1920s
#447
Julian Julian is a boy's name of Latin origin, derived from the Roman family name Julius.
7,078 in the 1920s
#448
Jo Jo is a name serving as the short form of Joanne, Josephine and Joan for women and Joseph for men.
7,061 in the 1920s
#449
Forrest Forrest is one of only two names in this group birth records mark as rising, and it is on its second life — American births ran 490 in 2018 and 862 in 2025, having collapsed from a 1994 peak twenty years before.
7,051 in the 1920s
#450
Alan Alan is a boy's name of Breton origin whose meaning has never been established.
7,045 in the 1920s
#451
Sylvester Sylvester means of the woods, and a pope carried it into the calendar — Sylvester I died on 31 December, which is why New Year's Eve is still called Silvester across much of Europe.
7,028 in the 1920s
#452
Allan Allan has no settled meaning at all — handsome, little rock and a deer are all proposed for the Breton original, and the name reached England through Brittany rather than through Ireland or Scotland at all.
7,027 in the 1920s
#453
Nelson Nelson means son of Neil, and the admiral made it a given name — it was a surname until Trafalgar, after which parents across the English-speaking world started using it as a first name outright.
6,980 in the 1920s
#454
Etta Etta is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "home ruler."
6,971 in the 1920s
#455
Isabelle Isabelle is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath."
6,964 in the 1920s
#456
Nadine Nadine looks entirely French and is Russian underneath — it is Nadezhda, the ordinary Russian word for hope, borrowed into French and given a French ending.
6,961 in the 1920s
#457
Ted Ted is a boy's name that serves two unrelated names at once, and it exists because medieval English moved the n from "mine Edward."
6,927 in the 1920s
#458
Cecilia Cecilia is a girl's name of Latin origin from the Roman family name Caecilius, which derives from caecus, meaning blind.
6,912 in the 1920s
#459
Nick Nick means victory of the people, and the compound is political rather than personal — the Greek joins victory to the citizen body, so it describes a public triumph and not an individual one.
6,881 in the 1920s
#460
Jesus Jesus is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "the Lord is salvation."
6,859 in the 1920s
#461
Selma Selma may have been invented by a forger — the name appears in Macpherson's Ossian poems of the 1760s, which he presented as ancient Gaelic epic and largely wrote himself.
6,851 in the 1920s
#462
Rufus Rufus means red-haired, and it named a king by his complexion — William II of England was called Rufus for his ruddy face, and he died with an arrow in him in the New Forest.
6,807 in the 1920s
#463
Ina
6,795 in the 1920s
#464
Nathan Nathan is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he gave," from Natan.
6,748 in the 1920s
#465
Natalie Natalie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "birthday of the Lord," from natalis.
6,744 in the 1920s
#466
Ola
6,646 in the 1920s
#467
Mark Mark is a boy's name of Latin origin, most likely meaning "of Mars," borne by the evangelist who wrote the earliest gospel.
6,621 in the 1920s
#468
Isaac Isaac is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he laughs," from Yitzhak.
6,569 in the 1920s
#469
Seymour
6,543 in the 1920s
#470
Elva
6,531 in the 1920s
#471
Frankie Frankie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "free man" or "Frenchman."
6,409 in the 1920s
#472
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.
6,370 in the 1920s
#473
Angela Angela is a girl's name from the Greek for messenger, the word that also gives us angel.
6,341 in the 1920s
#474
Pete Pete means rock, and it began as a joke about a man's character — Jesus renames Simon as Cephas, the Aramaic for a stone, and the pun works in Greek but not in English.
6,332 in the 1920s
#475
Eleanore
6,319 in the 1920s
#476
Ellis Ellis is a name of Hebrew origin meaning "the Lord is my God."
6,302 in the 1920s
#477
Wendell Wendell names a people rather than a quality — the Wends were the Slavic populations of eastern Germany, so the name records who someone's neighbors thought they were rather than anything they did.
6,289 in the 1920s
#478
Alta
6,228 in the 1920s
#479
Aaron Aaron is a boy's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is not established.
6,222 in the 1920s
#480
Myron Myron means myrrh, and the resin was worth its weight in gold — traded up the incense routes from southern Arabia, used for embalming, and one of the three gifts in Matthew.
6,200 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.