1930s Baby Names

12,733 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

#289
Claire Claire is a girl's name of French origin meaning "clear" or "bright," from the Latin clarus.
13,038 in the 1930s
#290
Mae Mae is a girl's name in France, generally read as a form of Mae or as a feminine of the Breton Mahé.
12,998 in the 1930s
#291
Maurice Maurice is a boy's name from a Latin word meaning a Moor, originally describing someone from Roman North Africa. Our data marks it reviving, and it peaked in 1920 — a century-long gap of the same kind we see in Walter and Frances.
12,985 in the 1930s
#292
Terry Terry is a name serving as a short form of Terence and of the Germanic Theodoric, two unrelated names, and it is genuinely mixed — about 18 percent of the births in our records are female.
12,951 in the 1930s
#293
Claude Claude is a name from a Roman family name meaning lame, one of very few widely used names with an unflattering literal sense.
12,865 in the 1930s
#294
Suzanne Suzanne is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "lily," from shoshannah.
12,785 in the 1930s
#295
Rebecca Rebecca is a girl's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is unsettled, and the standard gloss involves a rope for tying cattle.
12,679 in the 1930s
#296
Faye Faye is a girl's name of Old French origin meaning "fairy," from a word that traces back to the Fates of Roman religion.
12,666 in the 1930s
#297
Carrie Carrie is a girl's name, a pet form of Caroline meaning free man through Charles.
12,665 in the 1930s
#298
Freddie Freddie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "peaceful ruler."
12,646 in the 1930s
#299
Willard Willard means bold desire, and both halves are Germanic words about force of will — it is a surname from a personal name, and its American use is almost entirely nineteenth-century onward.
12,604 in the 1930s
#300
Jose Jose is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he will add," the Spanish and Portuguese form of Joseph.
12,507 in the 1930s
#301
Dora Dora means gift, and it is the end of several names rather than a name in its own right — Theodora, Isidora and Dorothea all supply it, and Dorothy means the same thing with the halves reversed.
12,483 in the 1930s
#302
Manuel Manuel is a boy's name meaning God is with us, the Spanish short form of Emmanuel.
12,451 in the 1930s
#303
Rachel Rachel is a girl's name from Hebrew meaning ewe, borne by Jacob's wife in Genesis.
12,366 in the 1930s
#304
Rosie Rosie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "rose."
12,186 in the 1930s
#305
Emily Emily is a girl's name of Latin origin, from the Roman family name Aemilius.
11,969 in the 1930s
#306
Edgar Edgar is a boy's name meaning wealthy spear, and it is one of very few Old English names still in wide use.
11,937 in the 1930s
#307
Eunice Eunice means good victory, and she is named in the New Testament as Timothy's mother — one of very few women whose faith Paul credits by name, alongside her own mother Lois.
11,823 in the 1930s
#308
Max Max is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "greatest."
11,823 in the 1930s
#309
Hugh Hugh is a boy's name from a Germanic word for mind or spirit, brought to Britain by the Normans.
11,779 in the 1930s
#310
Virgil Virgil is misspelled and always has been — the poet's name was Vergilius, and medieval scribes changed the e to an i by association with virgo, which is how a Roman family name acquired a meaning it never had.
11,524 in the 1930s
#311
Oscar Oscar is a boy's name with two competing origins: the Irish os, deer, plus cara, friend, giving "deer lover," or the Old Norse Ásgeirr, meaning "god's spear."
11,493 in the 1930s
#312
Maureen Maureen is the Irish Máirín, a diminutive of Máire, which is itself the Irish form of Mary.
11,488 in the 1930s
#313
Alberta Alberta means noble and bright, and a Canadian province carries it — Alberta was named for Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, whose full name was Louise Caroline Alberta.
11,445 in the 1930s
#314
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.
11,381 in the 1930s
#315
Laverne Laverne means the alder grove, and the goddess sometimes cited for it is a poor fit — Laverna was the Roman patroness of thieves, which is not a namesake most sources mention when they list her.
11,339 in the 1930s
#316
Cora Cora is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "maiden," from kore.
11,328 in the 1930s
#317
Stella Stella is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "star."
11,288 in the 1930s
#318
Darrell Darrell does not mean beloved.
11,229 in the 1930s
#319
Lula Lula has no single parent — it shortens Louise, Lucille and Tallulah alike, and our data marks it reviving, ranking 1306th in England and Wales against 1938th in the United States.
11,159 in the 1930s
#320
Wesley Wesley is a boy's name of English origin meaning "western meadow," from the Old English west and leah.
11,055 in the 1930s
#321
Everett Everett is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "brave as a wild boar," from eber, boar, and hard, brave or hardy.
11,019 in the 1930s
#322
Sheila Sheila is the Irish form of Cecilia, meaning blind — and parents outside Ireland should know it became Australian slang for a woman in the nineteenth century, which is why it barely charts there.
11,008 in the 1930s
#323
Bennie Bennie means son of the right hand, and Jacob renamed the child to get there — his dying mother called him son of my sorrow, and his father would not let the name stand.
10,881 in the 1930s
#324
Caroline Caroline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man," the French feminine of Charles by way of the Latin Carolus.
10,867 in the 1930s
#325
Carmen Carmen has two unrelated sources — the Latin word for a song, and a Spanish Marian title from Mount Carmel in Israel.
10,852 in the 1930s
#326
Verna Verna means springtime, from the Latin for spring — and our data marks it reviving, though from a low base at 3464th in the United States on a 1918 peak of 1,885.
10,682 in the 1930s
#327
Glenda Glenda is a twentieth-century Welsh invention rather than a traditional name — it joins two ordinary Welsh adjectives, and it does not appear in the historical record before about 1900.
10,630 in the 1930s
#328
Lena Lena is a girl's name used as a short form of Helena, Magdalena and Elena, so it usually carries the sense "light" or "torch."
10,610 in the 1930s
#329
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."
10,575 in the 1930s
#330
Lola Lola is a girl's name of Spanish origin meaning "sorrows."
10,456 in the 1930s
#331
Jay Jay is a name serving as an initial-letter shortening for any J name, as a bird name, and as an Indian name meaning victory.
10,444 in the 1930s
#332
Hattie Hattie is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "home ruler."
10,329 in the 1930s
#333
Myrna
10,260 in the 1930s
#334
Dick
10,180 in the 1930s
#335
Gwendolyn Gwendolyn means white ring or blessed ring, from Welsh, and the second element is genuinely a ring — a torc or armlet, which was the standard Celtic mark of rank.
10,179 in the 1930s
#336
Ramona Ramona means protecting counsel, and a novel made it — Helen Hunt Jackson wrote Ramona in 1884 to expose the treatment of Native Californians, and readers took the romance and ignored the argument.
10,170 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.