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

#750
Flossie
2,529 in the 1930s
#751
Johanna Johanna means God is gracious, and it heads one of the largest name families in Europe — Jane, Joan, Jean, Janet, Sinead and Siobhan are all the same name arriving by different national routes.
2,526 in the 1930s
#753
Marsha Marsha is a phonetic respelling of Marcia, and the name underneath is dedicated to Mars — the same god who gives his name to March, when the Roman year and the campaigning season both began.
2,515 in the 1930s
#754
Sonia Sonia is not a name in its own right in Russian — it is the everyday pet form of Sofia, and it means wisdom.
2,510 in the 1930s
#760
Leila Leila means night, from Arabic, and it is one of the most evenly spread names on this site — France 211th, the United States 259th, England and Wales 269th, Scotland 282nd and Ireland 339th, a spread of just 128 places.
2,473 in the 1930s
#761
Zelma
2,469 in the 1930s
#762
Monica Monica is a girl's name whose meaning is genuinely unknown, and whose saint — the mother of Augustine — came from Roman North Africa, so the name may be Berber rather than Latin or Greek at all.
2,469 in the 1930s
#763
Odessa
2,448 in the 1930s
#766
Alyce
2,409 in the 1930s
#770
Carmella
2,392 in the 1930s
#771
Reva
2,379 in the 1930s
#772
Frieda
2,375 in the 1930s
#773
Clare Clare is the older English spelling and the one the Irish county carries, and its history is British and Irish rather than American — England, Scotland and Ireland all peaked far above the United States.
2,372 in the 1930s
#776
Edwina
2,362 in the 1930s
#777
Louella
2,362 in the 1930s
#778
Marilynn
2,359 in the 1930s
#779
Rochelle Rochelle means little rock, and it is a place rather than a person — La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast was a Huguenot stronghold, and the name reached English through the town rather than any saint.
2,346 in the 1930s
#780
Letha
2,344 in the 1930s
#782
Allie Allie means noble, and it serves three different names at once — Alice, Allison and Alexandra all shorten to it, so which one a given Allie belongs to cannot be read off the name itself.
2,326 in the 1930s
#785
Antonia Antonia has no known meaning, and the flower reading given everywhere is a Renaissance invention — humanists attached the Greek anthos to a Roman family name that has never been explained.
2,281 in the 1930s
#786
Loraine
2,278 in the 1930s
#787
Andrea Andrea is a name meaning "manly" or "brave," from the Greek aner.
2,277 in the 1930s
#788
Carlene
2,273 in the 1930s
#793
Carla Carla is a girl's name meaning free man, the Italian and Spanish feminine of Carlo.
2,262 in the 1930s
#794
Consuelo
2,260 in the 1930s
#795
Queen
2,243 in the 1930s
#797
Lily Lily is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "lily flower," from lilium.
2,234 in the 1930s
#798
Marietta
2,228 in the 1930s
#799
Rae
2,224 in the 1930s
#801
Aurora Aurora is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "dawn."
2,213 in the 1930s
#802
Noreen
2,197 in the 1930s
#804
Lynda Lynda means lime tree, from Spanish and Germanic roots that disagree — the pretty reading comes from the Spanish linda, and the tree from a Germanic element, and neither is settled.
2,195 in the 1930s
#809
Aileen Aileen means hazel, most likely, and the shining gloss usually given for it comes from confusion with Helen — the Norman Aveline is the likelier parent, and it has nothing to do with light.
2,157 in the 1930s
#811
Hope Hope is a girl's name of Old English origin taken from the virtue, from hopian.
2,140 in the 1930s
#812
Florine
2,139 in the 1930s
#815
Angie Angie means messenger, and the Greek root behind it named someone carrying news — the wings and choirs of later Christianity all grew from an ordinary occupational word.
2,131 in the 1930s
#819
Hannah Hannah is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "grace" or "favor," from Channah.
2,126 in the 1930s
#820
Francine Francine means Frenchwoman, and it is a French diminutive of a name that already means French — so it reads as a small French person, which is circular in a way few names manage.
2,125 in the 1930s
#821
Corine
2,124 in the 1930s
#822
Jannie
2,109 in the 1930s
#825
Concetta
2,087 in the 1930s
#828
Elouise
2,048 in the 1930s
#831
Helena Helena is a girl's name of Greek origin whose meaning is unresolved, and its saint is credited with finding the True Cross.
2,035 in the 1930s
#832
Lilly Lilly is a girl's name of Latin origin taken from the flower, from lilium.
2,034 in the 1930s
#833
Matilda Matilda is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "mighty in battle."
2,033 in the 1930s
#835
Lessie
2,009 in the 1930s
#837
Jenny Jenny began as a pet form of Jane, not Jennifer — the two attached to each other only in the twentieth century, and Jennifer was almost unknown outside Cornwall before 1900.
1,989 in the 1930s
#838
Callie Callie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "beautiful."
1,982 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.