1940s Baby Names
4,671 names were given to children in the United States between 1940 and 1949, 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.
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#1,607Pierre Pierre is a boy's name, the French form of Peter, from the Greek for rock.764 in the 1940s
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#1,624Lucien Lucien is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "light," the French form of Lucian.745 in the 1940s
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#1,664Walker Walker is a boy's name of English origin meaning "a fuller of cloth."720 in the 1940s
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#1,698Nicolas Nicolas is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "victory of the people."694 in the 1940s
What Made a 1940s Name
Children in the United States were registered with it between 1940 and 1949. 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 The statistics offices do not publish names given to very few children in a year, so a gap can also mean the count dropped below the threshold rather than to nothing.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.