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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#6,201Ali Ali is a name of Arabic origin meaning "exalted" or "high."65 in the 1940s 9 of 10 years
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#6,248Shepherd Shepherd is a boy's name of English origin, the occupational surname for someone who tended sheep.64 in the 1940s 9 of 10 years
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#6,298Reo Reo is a boy's name used in Japanese, where it is written with a range of characters, and in Māori, where it means voice or language.63 in the 1940s 9 of 10 years
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 The statistics offices do not publish names given to very few children in a year, so a gap can also mean the count dropped below the threshold rather than to nothing.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.