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

#289
Morris Morris means dark-skinned, from the Latin for a Moor — and the morris dance carries the same word, having been thought to imitate Moorish dancing when it reached England.
14,247 in the 1920s
#290
Max Max is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "greatest."
14,194 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
#293
Bob Bob comes from Robert, and the B is not a corruption but a system — medieval English made pet names by rhyming, which is why Rob gave Bob, Will gave Bill and Rick gave Dick.
13,765 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
#295
Nicholas Nicholas is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "victory of the people," from nike, victory, and laos, the people.
13,700 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 it is reviving — 948th in the United States, 1,386th in England and Wales, 1,507th in Canada and 6,569th in France, from a peak more than a century old.
13,455 in the 1920s
#298
Luther Luther means army of the people, and its weight comes from a surname rather than a saint — Martin Luther's family name became a given name across the Protestant world, and then across Black America.
13,364 in the 1920s
#299
Bruce Bruce is a boy's name from a Norman place name, and Scotland's most famous king carried it as an import — the Bruces came from Normandy, not from Scotland.
13,308 in the 1920s
#300
Bette
13,285 in the 1920s
#301
Junior Junior is a boy's name from the Latin for younger, used first as a suffix marking a son who shares his father's name and only later as a name in its own right.
13,048 in the 1920s
#302
Wesley Wesley is a boy's name of English origin meaning "western meadow," from the Old English west and leah.
12,970 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
#305
Rudolph Rudolph means famous wolf, and the reindeer was invented to sell things — a Montgomery Ward copywriter wrote him for a giveaway booklet in 1939, which makes him a corporate creation rather than a folk one.
12,638 in the 1920s
#306
Franklin Franklin means a freeholder — a man who owned his land but held no noble rank, a specific medieval class.
12,596 in the 1920s
#307
Alexander Alexander is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "defender of men," from alexein, to defend, and aner, man.
12,591 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 birth records mark 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
#317
Tom Tom is a boy's name of Aramaic origin meaning "twin," a short form of Thomas used as a full name across Europe.
12,065 in the 1920s
#318
Eloise Eloise is a girl's name of French origin, from the medieval Héloïse.
11,972 in the 1920s
#319
Irving Irving names a Scottish river valley, and it reached American use largely through one writer — Washington Irving, who gave English both Rip Van Winkle and the nickname Gotham for New York.
11,960 in the 1920s
#320
Willis Willis means son of Will, and the Will behind it is William — a name so common in medieval England that its diminutives generated a whole family of surnames, of which this is one.
11,944 in the 1920s
#321
Horace Horace has no reliable meaning — the Roman family name Horatius resists derivation, and France ranks it 2,765th against the United States at 6,218th, so the poet's name is now used more readily in French than in English.
11,841 in the 1920s
#322
Janice Janice is a girl's name usually credited to a 1899 novel, though it is on record from 1894 — five years before the book.
11,831 in the 1920s
#323
Johnny Johnny is a boy's name, the pet form of John, meaning God is gracious.
11,801 in the 1920s
#324
Maggie Maggie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "pearl."
11,775 in the 1920s
#325
Dean Dean is a boy's name with two English origins.
11,721 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
#327
Merle Merle means blackbird, and it is one of the mixed names on this site — 33 percent of recorded births are female, and it is reviving.
11,573 in the 1920s
#328
Patrick Patrick is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "nobleman."
11,549 in the 1920s
#329
Steve Steve is a boy's name, the short form of Steven or Stephen, meaning crown or garland.
11,430 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
#334
Cleo Cleo is a name of Greek origin meaning "glory" or "fame."
11,188 in the 1920s
#335
Ollie Ollie is a name of Norse origin meaning "ancestor's descendant."
11,133 in the 1920s
#336
Patsy Patsy serves both Patricia and Patrick, and it is 94 percent female on record — 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

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.