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.

All Girls Boys Unisex

Rankings for

#450
Gerard Gerard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave with the spear.
8,138 in the 1940s
#452
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.
8,103 in the 1940s
#457
Tim Tim means honoring God, and France ranks it 277th — far above the United States at 3,221st, which is the reverse of what an English short form would normally do.
8,009 in the 1940s
#464
Nelson Nelson means son of Neil, and the admiral made it a given name — it was a surname until Trafalgar, after which parents across the English-speaking world started using it as a first name outright.
7,854 in the 1940s
#469
Otis Otis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "wealth" or "fortune."
7,765 in the 1940s
#472
Clinton Clinton means the settlement on the hill, from an English place name — and the two American presidents who carried it did so by adoption and by surname, not by descent from the place.
7,720 in the 1940s
#473
Terrence Terrence descends from a Roman playwright who was born enslaved in North Africa — Terence was freed by his owner, wrote six comedies that survive complete, and shaped Latin prose style for centuries.
7,701 in the 1940s
#476
Randolph Randolph means shield-wolf, and the shield in it is specifically the rim — the Germanic rand names the edge of the shield rather than the whole thing, which is the part that met an enemy's blade.
7,570 in the 1940s
#477
Dick
7,562 in the 1940s
#479
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.
7,370 in the 1940s
#483
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.
7,248 in the 1940s
#487
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.
7,119 in the 1940s
#489
Reginald Reginald means counsel-power, and England and Wales ranks it 229th on 217 births against 1,285th in the United States — one of the sharpest British-versus-American splits in this group.
7,100 in the 1940s
#490
Clayton Clayton means the settlement on clay, from an English place name that describes the ground it stood on.
7,080 in the 1940s
#494
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.
6,995 in the 1940s
#496
Ricky Ricky is a boy's name, the pet form of Richard or Ricardo, meaning strong ruler.
6,978 in the 1940s
#498
Alex Alex is a name of Greek origin meaning "defender of mankind."
6,912 in the 1940s
#499
Horace Horace has no reliable meaning — the Roman family name Horatius resists derivation, and France ranks it 2,765th against the United States at 6,218th, so the poet's name is now used more readily in French than in English.
6,902 in the 1940s
#505
Laurence Laurence is the one name on this site that changes sex at the Channel: it is a man's name in English and a woman's name in French.
6,686 in the 1940s
#506
Rex Rex means king, and it is the plain Latin nominative — which makes it the pair to Regis, the genitive meaning of the king.
6,682 in the 1940s
#510
Rudolph Rudolph means famous wolf, and the reindeer was invented to sell things — a Montgomery Ward copywriter wrote him for a giveaway booklet in 1939, which makes him a corporate creation rather than a folk one.
6,574 in the 1940s
#511
Byron Byron means at the cattle sheds — a working place name that became shorthand for romantic poetry, which is a longer journey than most names make.
6,541 in the 1940s
#515
Archie Archie is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "genuine and bold."
6,505 in the 1940s
#516
Jesus Jesus is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "the Lord is salvation."
6,456 in the 1940s
#517
Alton Alton means the settlement at the river's source, and that is more specific than the old town reading usually given — the Old English element is a spring or wellhead, not age.
6,414 in the 1940s
#520
Ruben Ruben is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "behold, a son."
6,357 in the 1940s
#521
Merle Merle means blackbird, and it is one of the mixed names on this site — 33 percent of recorded births are female, and it is reviving.
6,341 in the 1940s
#522
Troy Troy is a boy's name with two independent sources — an Irish surname meaning foot soldier, and the ancient city.
6,310 in the 1940s
#523
Leland Leland means fallow land — ground deliberately left unplowed for a season.
6,280 in the 1940s
#524
Willis Willis means son of Will, and the Will behind it is William — a name so common in medieval England that its diminutives generated a whole family of surnames, of which this is one.
6,261 in the 1940s
#526
Marc Marc is a boy's name from a Roman name probably meaning dedicated to Mars, the god of war, and it is the source of the month of March.
6,199 in the 1940s
#529
Neal Neal has no agreed meaning — champion, cloud and passionate are all proposed for the Irish Niall and none is established.
6,175 in the 1940s
#530
Antonio Antonio is a boy's name of Etruscan origin whose meaning is unknown.
6,171 in the 1940s
#531
Ross Ross means a headland or a promontory, from Gaelic, and Scotland ranks it 328th — its strongest market, ahead of Ireland at 347th and far ahead of the United States at 1,465th.
6,170 in the 1940s
#532
Mitchell Mitchell is a boy's name from a medieval English form of Michael, meaning who is like God — though a second and quite separate source exists from an old word simply meaning big.
6,163 in the 1940s
#533
Pete Pete means rock, and it began as a joke about a man's character — Jesus renames Simon as Cephas, the Aramaic for a stone, and the pun works in Greek but not in English.
6,149 in the 1940s
#534
Oliver Oliver is a boy's name that entered England with the Normans and has a disputed origin.
6,124 in the 1940s
#535
Daryl Daryl completes a set of three — Darrell, Darryl and Daryl are one Norman place name split across three spellings, and all three appear in this group, carrying about 328,000 births between them.
6,095 in the 1940s
#536
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.
5,985 in the 1940s
#537
Aaron Aaron is a boy's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is not established.
5,984 in the 1940s
#538
Rick Rick means brave ruler, shortened from Richard — and the medieval habit of rhyming pet names is why Rick also produced Dick, which is the same name with a different first letter.
5,977 in the 1940s
#540
Jeff Jeff means peace, shortened from Geoffrey — but the first element of that compound is disputed between three different Germanic words, so only the peace half of the name is agreed on by the sources.
5,909 in the 1940s
#541
Darryl Darryl does not mean darling.
5,901 in the 1940s
#545
Rudy Rudy is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous wolf."
5,858 in the 1940s
#546
Wilbert Wilbert means bright will, and it is one of a small set of names joining desire to brightness — the same beorht that ends Albert, Robert and Gilbert, on a first element meaning wanting something.
5,823 in the 1940s
#547
Edmund Edmund was England's patron saint before George — Edmund the Martyr, king of East Anglia, was killed by a Viking army in 869 and held that position for some three hundred years before a crusader saint displaced him.
5,807 in the 1940s
#549
Jerald
5,735 in the 1940s
#552
Mack Mack means son of, and on its own it is only half a name — the Gaelic mac is a prefix, so using it alone is like naming a child Junior with nothing in front of it.
5,686 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.