1940s Baby Names

4,665 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.

All Girls Boys Unisex

Rankings for

#220
Keith Keith is a boy's name from a Scottish place name, probably from a Brittonic word for a wood.
25,994 in the 1940s
#221
Clifford Clifford is a boy's name from an English place name meaning a ford by a cliff — a river crossing below a steep bank.
25,974 in the 1940s
#223
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.
24,930 in the 1940s
#226
Jesse Jesse is a name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is debated.
24,551 in the 1940s
#227
Gordon Gordon is a Scottish surname turned given name, from a place in Berwickshire whose meaning is not settled — spacious fort is the usual gloss but it is a guess.
24,525 in the 1940s
#229
Vincent Vincent is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "conquering," from vincere, to conquer.
23,970 in the 1940s
#230
Warren Warren is a boy's name from a Norman place name, and it is the second-strongest revival we hold — it peaked in 1921 and now ranks 240th in the United States on 1,493 births, a century later.
23,840 in the 1940s
#233
Lloyd Lloyd is a boy's name from the Welsh word for gray, and the double L is a genuine Welsh consonant that English has no letter for.
23,723 in the 1940s
#234
Leon Leon is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "lion."
23,694 in the 1940s
#236
Jerome Jerome is a boy's name meaning sacred name, and it belongs to the scholar who translated the Bible into Latin — the version Western Europe read for over a thousand years.
23,220 in the 1940s
#238
Edwin Edwin is a boy's name from Old English meaning rich friend, borne by a Northumbrian king whose fortress may have given Edinburgh its name.
23,035 in the 1940s
#240
Brian Brian is a boy's name of Irish origin whose meaning is unsettled — noble and high are both proposed, and neither is secure.
22,840 in the 1940s
#241
Victor Victor is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "conqueror."
22,615 in the 1940s
#248
Bob Bob comes from Robert, and the B is not a corruption but a system — medieval English made pet names by rhyming, which is why Rob gave Bob, Will gave Bill and Rick gave Dick.
21,430 in the 1940s
#250
Floyd Floyd is the same name as Lloyd, and the F is a mistake that stuck — English had no way to say the Welsh double L, so it substituted the closest sound it had, and the substitution became a separate name.
21,134 in the 1940s
#251
Lewis Lewis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior," the English form of Louis.
21,040 in the 1940s
#252
Clyde Clyde took nothing from Bonnie and Clyde.
20,964 in the 1940s
#253
Harvey Harvey is a boy's name of Breton origin meaning "battle worthy."
20,871 in the 1940s
#254
Alvin Alvin means elf-friend, from an Old English name that treats elves as beings whose favor was worth having.
20,835 in the 1940s
#260
Craig Craig is a boy's name from the Gaelic word for a rock or crag, and one of the few names that is a plain landscape noun rather than a compound.
20,350 in the 1940s
#263
Vernon Vernon is a Norman place name meaning a place of alders, from a Gaulish word — so a French town gave England a surname that America turned into a first name, three languages deep.
20,225 in the 1940s
#269
Franklin Franklin means a freeholder — a man who owned his land but held no noble rank, a specific medieval class.
19,404 in the 1940s
#271
Calvin Calvin is a boy's name of French origin meaning "little bald one," from the Latin calvus, bald.
19,339 in the 1940s
#272
Jon Jon is a boy's name meaning God is gracious, and it is both an English shortening of Jonathan and the standard Scandinavian and Catalan form of John — two routes to the same three letters.
19,271 in the 1940s
#278
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.
18,968 in the 1940s
#280
Darrell Darrell does not mean beloved.
18,397 in the 1940s
#282
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.
18,073 in the 1940s
#283
Randall Randall is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning shield-wolf.
17,896 in the 1940s
#284
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.
17,866 in the 1940s
#285
Freddie Freddie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "peaceful ruler."
17,758 in the 1940s
#287
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.
17,658 in the 1940s
#290
Gilbert Gilbert is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning bright pledge, and it founded the only medieval religious order native to England.
17,427 in the 1940s
#292
Duane Duane means the little dark one, from an Irish surname built on the word for black — and that same root also gives us Dublin, which means the black pool that the city originally grew up around.
17,275 in the 1940s
#293
Benjamin Benjamin is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "son of the right hand," from Binyamin.
17,252 in the 1940s
#294
Lester Lester means from Leicester, and the spelling is the honest one — Leicester has been pronounced LES-ter for centuries, so the surname simply wrote down what people had actually been saying to each other all along.
17,230 in the 1940s
#296
Tony Tony is a boy's name from the Roman family name Antonius, whose meaning has never been established.
17,177 in the 1940s
#297
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.
17,099 in the 1940s
#299
Leo Leo is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "lion."
17,075 in the 1940s
#300
Jose Jose is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he will add," the Spanish and Portuguese form of Joseph.
17,011 in the 1940s
#302
Herman Herman means army man, and the German national hero Hermann is a Latin scribe's version of a Cheruscan name we cannot now recover — Arminius, the chief who destroyed three Roman legions in AD 9.
16,957 in the 1940s
#304
Dean Dean is a boy's name with two English origins.
16,802 in the 1940s
#305
Glen Glen means a narrow valley, and it is one of very few Gaelic words that English borrowed wholesale rather than adapting to its own sounds.
16,723 in the 1940s
#309
Arnold Arnold means eagle power, and England and Wales ranks it 631st on 59 births — well above the United States at 1478th, which is not what the name's twentieth-century American associations would predict.
16,104 in the 1940s
#311
Christopher Christopher is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "bearer of Christ," from Christos and pherein, to carry.
16,064 in the 1940s
#316
Nicholas Nicholas is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "victory of the people," from nike, victory, and laos, the people.
15,531 in the 1940s
#318
Chester Chester is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "fortress" or "walled camp."
15,404 in the 1940s
#319
Cecil Cecil means blind, from a Roman family name, and the saint who made it famous is patron of music on the strength of one ambiguous line in her own account of her wedding day.
15,392 in the 1940s
#320
Eric Eric is a boy's name of Old Norse origin meaning "eternal ruler" or "sole ruler."
15,212 in the 1940s

What made a 1940s name

Nothing about the sound of it. A name is on this page because children in the United States were registered with it between 1940 and 1949, and its position is simply how many. Every list of "1940s 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.