1940s Baby Names
7,630 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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#1,033Yvette Yvette is a girl's name from a Germanic word for the yew tree, by way of Breton.1,739 in the 1940s
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#1,070Adeline Adeline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "noble," from the element adal.1,619 in the 1940s
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#1,079Lilly Lilly is a girl's name of Latin origin taken from the flower, from lilium.1,596 in the 1940s
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#1,106Lily Lily is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "lily flower," from lilium.1,511 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 The statistics offices do not publish names given to very few children in a year, so a gap can also mean the count dropped below the threshold rather than to nothing.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.