1930s Baby Names

6,742 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

#178
Laura Laura is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "laurel," the tree whose leaves crowned Roman victors and poets.
25,240 in the 1930s
#180
Julia Julia is a girl's name of Latin origin, the feminine of the Roman family name Julius.
25,132 in the 1930s
#184
Rosemary Rosemary is not Rose and Mary joined together — it is the herb, from a Latin phrase meaning dew of the sea.
24,941 in the 1930s
#185
Jeanette Jeanette means God is gracious, a French double diminutive of Jeanne.
24,870 in the 1930s
#190
Marian Marian is a girl's name that either joins Mary and Ann or diminutives Mary alone — the sources disagree.
24,151 in the 1930s
#194
Beatrice Beatrice is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "she who brings happiness."
23,879 in the 1930s
#195
Margie Margie means pearl, carried from Margaret — and the Greek behind it may be a loan from an Indo-Iranian source, so the word for the gem traveled a long way before it became a name.
23,491 in the 1930s
#198
Vivian Vivian is a name of Latin origin meaning "alive" or "lively," from vivus.
23,293 in the 1930s
#201
Eva Eva is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "life" or "living."
22,957 in the 1930s
#203
Kathryn Kathryn is a girl's name, the y-spelling of Katherine, and it inherits that name's genuinely unknown meaning.
22,672 in the 1930s
#204
Elsie Elsie is a girl's name that began as a Scottish short form of Elspeth, itself a Scottish form of Elizabeth.
22,513 in the 1930s
#206
Judy Judy is a girl's name, the pet form of Judith, from a Hebrew word meaning a woman of Judea.
22,394 in the 1930s
#207
Eileen Eileen is a girl's name anglicizing the Irish Eibhlín, and its meaning is genuinely unsettled — it may render Helen, or Evelyn, or a native Irish name.
22,349 in the 1930s
#208
Anita Anita is a girl's name, the Spanish diminutive of Ana, meaning grace.
22,335 in the 1930s
#209
Diane Diane is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "divine" or "heavenly," the French form of the Roman goddess Diana.
22,268 in the 1930s
#212
Bertha Bertha is a girl's name from a Germanic word meaning bright, and it was Charlemagne's mother's name.
21,403 in the 1930s
#213
Susan Susan is a girl's name from a Hebrew word for lily, taken in turn from an Egyptian word for lotus.
21,114 in the 1930s
#214
Maria Maria is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, the Latin and Greek form of Miryam.
20,988 in the 1930s
#217
Maxine Maxine is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "greatest," a feminine form of Maximus.
20,596 in the 1930s
#219
Ida Ida is a girl's name from a Germanic word for work or labor, and it charts in all seven markets we track.
20,368 in the 1930s
#220
Yvonne Yvonne is a girl's name from a Germanic word for the yew tree, by way of Breton.
20,336 in the 1930s
#223
Lillie Lillie is a girl's name from the flower, which has stood for purity in Christian art for so long that the association predates the name.
20,135 in the 1930s
#224
Ella Ella is a girl's name with two distinct origins. The Norman French line derives from the Germanic element ali, meaning other or foreign, while a Hebrew line gives Ella as a word for a terebinth tree.
20,121 in the 1930s
#226
Constance Constance is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "steadfastness," one of the abstract virtue names the early Church favored.
19,996 in the 1930s
#227
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.
19,590 in the 1930s
#231
Georgia Georgia is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "farmer" or "worker of the earth," the feminine of George, from ge, earth, and ergon, work.
19,159 in the 1930s
#233
Jeanne Jeanne is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is gracious," the French feminine of Jean.
18,824 in the 1930s
#234
Kay Kay serves two unrelated sources — the initial of Katherine, and Sir Kay of Arthurian legend, who is Arthur's foster brother and one of the oldest figures in the whole cycle.
18,607 in the 1930s
#235
Christine Christine is a girl's name from the Latin for a follower of Christ, the French form of Christina.
18,604 in the 1930s
#236
Alma Alma is a girl's name with several competing origins: "nourishing" in Latin, "soul" in Spanish, and "young woman" in Hebrew.
18,531 in the 1930s
#238
Sara Sara is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "princess" or "noblewoman."
18,366 in the 1930s
#241
Bessie Bessie is a girl's name meaning God is my oath, a pet form of Elizabeth.
18,182 in the 1930s
#242
Vera Vera is a girl's name with two origins that both work. In Russian it means "faith"; in Latin vera means "true" — and unusually for such a pair, the two senses reinforce rather than contradict each other.
18,135 in the 1930s
#243
Agnes Agnes is a girl's name from the Greek for pure, and the reason its saint is shown with a lamb is a Latin pun — agnus, lamb, sounds like the Greek hagnos but is a completely different word.
18,111 in the 1930s
#246
Nellie Nellie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "shining light."
17,835 in the 1930s
#247
Gail Gail is a girl's name meaning my father rejoices, clipped from Abigail.
17,721 in the 1930s
#252
Connie Connie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "steadfast" or "constant."
16,955 in the 1930s
#254
Karen Karen is a girl's name, the Danish form of Katherine, and it inherits that name's genuinely unknown meaning.
16,760 in the 1930s
#256
Lucy Lucy is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "light," from lux.
16,530 in the 1930s
#258
Mattie Mattie serves two entirely unrelated names — Martha, which is Aramaic for a lady, and Matilda, which is Germanic for might in battle.
16,463 in the 1930s
#260
Gertrude Gertrude is a girl's name from Germanic elements meaning spear-strength, and its saint is patron of cats — a modern attribution that no medieval source supports.
16,238 in the 1930s
#261
Rosa Rosa is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "rose."
16,221 in the 1930s
#262
Minnie Minnie Mouse did not make Minnie popular.
16,017 in the 1930s
#269
Velma Velma is an invented name with no root at all — it appears in nineteenth-century America built on the pattern of Selma and Thelma, and the Germanic derivations offered for it were attached afterwards.
14,359 in the 1930s
#270
Geneva Geneva is not named after the Swiss city — it is a form of Genevieve, whose own meaning is unsettled, and the city's name comes from a Celtic word for a bend or estuary entirely separately.
14,353 in the 1930s
#271
Viola Viola means violet, and it names the flower, the instrument and a Shakespeare heroine from the same Latin root.
14,345 in the 1930s
#272
Marcia Marcia means dedicated to Mars, and that god's name is also where the month of March comes from — the Roman year began in March, because that was when the campaigning season opened up again after the winter.
14,292 in the 1930s
#274
Leona Leona means lioness, and our data marks it reviving across six markets — the United States 429th, France 556th, Scotland 631st, Ireland 705th and England and Wales 716th, all within 290 places.
14,243 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.