1930s Baby Names

4,739 names were given to children in the United States between 1930 and 1939, 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

#919
Roderick Roderick means famous ruler, and its most consequential bearer lost a country — Roderic was the last Visigothic king of Spain, defeated in 711 by the Arab and Berber force that then held most of the peninsula for centuries.
1,684 in the 1930s
#920
Linwood
1,684 in the 1930s
#924
Ken
1,667 in the 1930s
#925
Earle
1,664 in the 1930s
#926
Jonathan Jonathan is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "Yahweh has given," from Yehonatan.
1,663 in the 1930s
#927
Miguel Miguel is a boy's name meaning who is like God, the Spanish and Portuguese form of Michael.
1,661 in the 1930s
#928
Miles Miles is a boy's name of disputed origin, usually connected to the Latin miles, meaning soldier.
1,658 in the 1930s
#931
Denis Denis is a boy's name from the Greek god of wine, and Ireland places it 240th — its strongest market by a wide margin.
1,655 in the 1930s
#940
Kevin Kevin is a boy's name of Irish origin meaning "gentle birth," and its saint founded Glendalough and by tradition lived to 120.
1,634 in the 1930s
#942
Harris Harris is a boy's name of English origin meaning "son of Harry," a surname turned first name that has climbed to ninth in Scotland.
1,629 in the 1930s
#947
Noah Noah is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "rest" or "comfort," from Noach.
1,612 in the 1930s
#950
Eli Eli is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "ascent" or "my God," depending on which Hebrew name it represents.
1,592 in the 1930s
#953
Darryl Darryl does not mean darling.
1,586 in the 1930s
#958
Winfred
1,569 in the 1930s
#962
Normand
1,549 in the 1930s
#963
Booker
1,542 in the 1930s
#965
Carmine
1,539 in the 1930s
#968
Vito
1,534 in the 1930s
#971
Jeff Jeff means peace, shortened from Geoffrey — but the first element of that compound is disputed between three different Germanic words, so only the peace half of the name is actually agreed on by the sources.
1,527 in the 1930s
#973
Ernie
1,519 in the 1930s
#974
Vance
1,515 in the 1930s
#975
Bud
1,512 in the 1930s
#976
Forest
1,509 in the 1930s
#977
Solomon Solomon means peace, and it charts in all seven markets we track — the same Hebrew shalom behind the Arabic Suleiman, so one name covers the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions at once.
1,487 in the 1930s
#978
Silas Silas is a boy's name generally understood as a Greek form of the Aramaic Seila, itself corresponding to the Hebrew Saul, meaning "asked for" or "prayed for."
1,482 in the 1930s
#982
Milford
1,478 in the 1930s
#983
Herschel
1,476 in the 1930s
#988
Ulysses
1,455 in the 1930s
#989
Elmo
1,452 in the 1930s
#992
Arturo Arturo means bear, probably — but Arthur is one of the genuinely unsolved names, with a Celtic word for bear and a Roman family name both proposed and neither established.
1,450 in the 1930s
#995
Vaughn
1,441 in the 1930s
#998
Rodolfo
1,433 in the 1930s
#999
Cyril Cyril means lord, and the man who carried it invented an alphabet — Cyrillic is named for the ninth-century missionary, though the script we call by his name was largely devised by his followers rather than by him.
1,433 in the 1930s
#1,000
Olin
1,430 in the 1930s
#1,002
Pablo Pablo is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "small" or "humble," the Spanish form of Paul.
1,428 in the 1930s
#1,003
Dalton Dalton means the settlement in the valley, and Northern Ireland ranks it 305th — above the United States at 448th, which is unexpected for a name whose modern use is almost entirely American.
1,426 in the 1930s
#1,004
Fernando Fernando means bold journey, and it is Germanic rather than Spanish — the Visigoths brought it to Iberia, where it became the royal name of Castile and Aragon and then traveled to the Americas.
1,423 in the 1930s
#1,006
Lenard
1,420 in the 1930s
#1,007
Rafael Rafael is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God heals."
1,420 in the 1930s
#1,011
Micheal Micheal is a boy's name of Hebrew origin whose full form is a rhetorical question — who is like God?
1,409 in the 1930s
#1,013
Claud
1,403 in the 1930s
#1,014
Blaine
1,397 in the 1930s
#1,017
Freeman
1,386 in the 1930s
#1,020
Tim Tim means honoring God, and France ranks it 277th — far above the United States at 3221st, which is the reverse of what an English short form would normally do.
1,377 in the 1930s
#1,024
Elias Elias is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "my God is Yahweh."
1,365 in the 1930s
#1,026
Everette
1,360 in the 1930s
#1,027
Fredric
1,358 in the 1930s
#1,028
Galen
1,357 in the 1930s

What made a 1930s name

Nothing about the sound of it. A name is on this page because children in the United States were registered with it between 1930 and 1939, and its position is simply how many. Every list of "1930s 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.