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 in our data — 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 our data marks 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

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.