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

#337
Rosemarie Rosemarie looks like Rose plus Marie, and as a name it is — but the herb rosemary has nothing to do with either, and the resemblance is one of the neatest coincidences in naming.
10,140 in the 1930s
#338
Sidney Sidney is a name of Old English origin meaning "wide meadow."
10,117 in the 1930s
#339
Lynn Lynn is a name from a Welsh and Gaelic word for a lake or a pool below a waterfall.
10,024 in the 1930s
#340
Hubert Hubert means bright mind, and its saint is the patron of hunters — Saint Hubertus, whose stag with a crucifix between its antlers is the emblem on every bottle of Jägermeister.
9,865 in the 1930s
#341
Jeannette Jeannette means God is gracious, a French double diminutive of Jeanne — and the -ette ending is doing the same work twice, since Jeanne is already a feminine of Jean.
9,821 in the 1930s
#342
Erma Erma is the only name in this group recorded in a single market across its whole history — every one of its 55,187 births is American, and it charts nowhere else in any year on record.
9,778 in the 1930s
#343
Nicholas Nicholas is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "victory of the people," from nike, victory, and laos, the people.
9,756 in the 1930s
#344
Rodney Rodney is a boy's name from an English place name, and its rise as a given name follows a single admiral — George Rodney, who broke the French line at the Saintes in 1782.
9,729 in the 1930s
#345
Lowell Lowell means little wolf, and it is Norman French rather than English — louvel is a diminutive of loup, so the name is affectionate about an animal most cultures feared.
9,726 in the 1930s
#346
Genevieve Genevieve is a girl's name of Gaulish origin whose meaning is not settled.
9,706 in the 1930s
#347
Dan Dan means he judged, and it is a full Hebrew name in its own right before it is short for Daniel — one of Jacob's twelve sons, and the tribe that gave its name to the northern border of Israel.
9,705 in the 1930s
#348
Nina Nina is a girl's name with several unrelated origins.
9,702 in the 1930s
#349
Cynthia Cynthia is a girl's name that began as a title for the moon goddess — it means she of Mount Cynthus, the peak on Delos where Artemis was said to have been born.
9,695 in the 1930s
#350
Patty Patty belonged to Martha before it belonged to Patricia — the pet form was reassigned in the twentieth century, one of several nicknames in English that quietly changed parents.
9,691 in the 1930s
#351
Fannie Fannie means Frenchwoman, shortened from Frances, and it left English-speaking use for reasons of slang rather than fashion — the word acquired a sense the name could not survive.
9,640 in the 1930s
#352
Jennie Jennie began as a Scottish pet form of Jean and only later attached to Jennifer, which is a Cornish name with no connection to it.
9,568 in the 1930s
#353
Neil Neil means champion or cloud, from Irish, and it traveled to Iceland with the Vikings and back to England with the Normans — so the English Neil arrived by way of Scandinavia and France.
9,514 in the 1930s
#354
Diana Diana is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "divine" or "heavenly," the Roman goddess of the hunt and the moon.
9,512 in the 1930s
#355
Hilda Hilda means battle, and it is the surviving fragment of longer Germanic names — Hildegard, Brunhild and Matilda all contain it, and the element outlived most of the compounds it belonged to.
9,492 in the 1930s
#356
Homer Homer means hostage, which makes it the third pledge name in this group alongside Gage and Giselle — and the ancient tradition that the poet was blind may have been read backward out of a dialect word rather than recorded from life.
9,472 in the 1930s
#357
Tony Tony is a boy's name from the Roman family name Antonius, whose meaning has never been established.
9,363 in the 1930s
#358
Marguerite Marguerite is a girl's name meaning pearl, and it is also the French word for the daisy — so the name carries a flower and a gemstone at once.
9,352 in the 1930s
#359
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.
9,202 in the 1930s
#360
Delbert Delbert is recorded in one country and nowhere else — every one of its 47,056 births is American, with no births in any other market in any year on record, which is rare even among American coinages.
9,195 in the 1930s
#361
Lyle Lyle is a boy's name from the Norman French for "the island," and the l at the front is the definite article rather than part of the word.
9,188 in the 1930s
#362
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.
9,147 in the 1930s
#363
Carroll Carroll is one of the more evenly divided names on this site — 14 percent of recorded births are female, and it belonged to the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence.
9,117 in the 1930s
#364
Wilbur Wilbur ranks 579th in England and Wales against 3,956th in the United States, so a name most people think of as thoroughly American is now used more than six times more readily in England.
9,109 in the 1930s
#365
Ronnie Ronnie is a name of Old Norse origin meaning "ruler's counsel."
9,061 in the 1930s
#366
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.
9,041 in the 1930s
#367
Deloris
9,039 in the 1930s
#368
Dixie Dixie names the American South and nobody knows why — the leading account is a French ten-dollar note printed dix in Louisiana, and the rival is the Mason-Dixon line.
8,994 in the 1930s
#369
Bettie
8,977 in the 1930s
#370
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.
8,948 in the 1930s
#371
Paula Paula is a girl's name from the Latin for small or humble, the feminine of Paul.
8,907 in the 1930s
#372
Joel Joel is a boy's name of Hebrew origin that joins two names for God, and the prophet's book supplied the line quoted at Pentecost.
8,895 in the 1930s
#373
Lonnie Lonnie shortens Alonzo and Alphonso, meaning noble and ready — and the Germanic original reached Spain with the Visigoths, so a name that reads as American South is Gothic by descent.
8,868 in the 1930s
#374
Earnest Earnest respells Ernest, and the Germanic behind it is not mild — eornost meant vigor in battle, seriousness of the deadly kind, long before it settled into the sense of being sincere.
8,854 in the 1930s
#375
Mabel Mabel is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "lovable."
8,837 in the 1930s
#376
Muriel Muriel means bright sea, from Gaelic, and it reached English twice — once through Irish and Scottish settlement and once through Breton, carried back across the Channel by the Normans.
8,833 in the 1930s
#377
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.
8,772 in the 1930s
#378
Inez Inez means chaste, and the Spanish spelling hides a Greek original — Agnes became Inés because Spanish dropped the initial vowel sound, so the two look unrelated and are the same name.
8,724 in the 1930s
#379
Beulah Beulah means married, and it is a place before it is a person — Isaiah calls the restored land Beulah, and Bunyan turned it into the country just short of heaven in Pilgrim's Progress.
8,719 in the 1930s
#380
Ben Ben is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "son," used both as a short form of Benjamin and as a name in its own right.
8,711 in the 1930s
#381
Frankie Frankie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "free man" or "Frenchman."
8,675 in the 1930s
#382
Opal Opal means the gem, and it is the only major stone whose name may come from Sanskrit — upala, a precious stone, reaching Greek and Latin through the trade routes rather than from a European root.
8,648 in the 1930s
#383
Steve Steve is a boy's name, the short form of Steven or Stephen, meaning crown or garland.
8,606 in the 1930s
#384
Ernestine Ernestine is the feminine of the same Germanic word as Earnest in this group — eornost, the vigor of a fight.
8,594 in the 1930s

What Made a 1930s Name

Children in the United States were registered with it between 1930 and 1939. 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.