1940s Baby Names

7,547 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

#286
Esther Esther is a girl's name usually connected to the Persian word for star, and possibly to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar.
17,731 in the 1940s
#288
Eva Eva is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "life" or "living."
17,656 in the 1940s
#289
Gayle Gayle carries 67,694 lifetime births and now charts in none of our six markets — one of the largest names on this site to have fallen entirely out of current use.
17,483 in the 1940s
#291
Bernice Bernice is a girl's name meaning bringer of victory, and it is the same name as Veronica — both descend from the Greek Berenike by different routes.
17,388 in the 1940s
#295
Andrea Andrea is a name meaning "manly" or "brave," from the Greek aner.
17,187 in the 1940s
#298
Maryann Maryann joins two names whose own meanings are unsettled — Mary has never been securely derived from the Hebrew, and Ann means grace, so only half of the compound has a firm reading.
17,084 in the 1940s
#301
Hazel Hazel is a girl's name of English origin naming the hazel tree, from the Old English hæsel.
16,958 in the 1940s
#303
Rosa Rosa is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "rose."
16,920 in the 1940s
#306
Bertha Bertha is a girl's name from a Germanic word meaning bright, and it was Charlemagne's mother's name.
16,309 in the 1940s
#307
Maxine Maxine is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "greatest," a feminine form of Maximus.
16,131 in the 1940s
#308
Marian Marian is a girl's name that either joins Mary and Ann or diminutives Mary alone — the sources disagree.
16,121 in the 1940s
#310
Ella Ella is a girl's name with two distinct origins. The Norman French line derives from the Germanic element ali, meaning other or foreign, while a Hebrew line gives Ella as a word for a terebinth tree.
16,080 in the 1940s
#312
Paulette Paulette is a girl's name meaning small or humble, a French diminutive of Paul — so it is a diminutive of a name that already means little.
15,942 in the 1940s
#313
Joy Joy is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning exactly what it says, taken from the English word.
15,797 in the 1940s
#314
Beatrice Beatrice is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "she who brings happiness."
15,625 in the 1940s
#315
Cathy Cathy is a girl's name, a pet form of Catherine whose meaning has never been established.
15,594 in the 1940s
#317
Lillie Lillie is a girl's name from the flower, which has stood for purity in Christian art for so long that the association predates the name.
15,458 in the 1940s
#322
Janis Janis fell further than any name in this sweep — 3,217 American births in 1947 down to 10 in the most recent year we hold, which is a fall of more than 99 percent.
14,908 in the 1940s
#324
Lynne Lynne now ranks 2155th in France and 14047th in the United States, so a name that peaked in America at 2,471 births ranks far higher in a country that barely used it.
14,397 in the 1940s
#325
Ida Ida is a girl's name from a Germanic word for work or labor, and it charts in all seven markets we track.
14,350 in the 1940s
#328
Faye Faye is a girl's name of Old French origin meaning "fairy," from a word that traces back to the Fates of Roman religion.
13,785 in the 1940s
#329
Deanna Deanna was popularized by a stage name — the actress born Edna Mae Durbin was renamed Deanna Durbin in 1936, and American births rose from almost nothing to a peak of 4,331 in 1970.
13,759 in the 1940s
#330
Valerie Valerie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "strong" or "healthy," from the verb valere, meaning to be strong or to be well.
13,723 in the 1940s
#331
Rachel Rachel is a girl's name from Hebrew meaning ewe, borne by Jacob's wife in Genesis.
13,464 in the 1940s
#332
Emily Emily is a girl's name of Latin origin, from the Roman family name Aemilius.
13,442 in the 1940s
#333
Lucy Lucy is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "light," from lux.
13,178 in the 1940s
#334
Penny Penny is a girl's name of Greek origin, a diminutive of Penelope, whose own name is bound up with a duck.
13,177 in the 1940s
#335
Janie Janie means God is gracious, shortened from Jane — and Jane is the English feminine of John, which makes it part of the largest name family in Europe by a considerable margin.
13,170 in the 1940s
#338
Harriet Harriet is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "home ruler."
12,943 in the 1940s
#339
Carmen Carmen has two unrelated sources — the Latin word for a song, and a Spanish Marian title from Mount Carmel in Israel.
12,912 in the 1940s
#342
Regina Regina is the Latin word for a queen, taken unchanged, and it is still the legal abbreviation in British courts — every criminal case against a defendant is formally Regina versus the accused.
12,757 in the 1940s
#344
Rosalie Rosalie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "rose."
12,611 in the 1940s
#345
Alma Alma is a girl's name with several competing origins: "nourishing" in Latin, "soul" in Spanish, and "young woman" in Hebrew.
12,551 in the 1940s
#348
Angela Angela is a girl's name from the Greek for messenger, the word that also gives us angel.
12,293 in the 1940s
#350
Vera Vera is a girl's name with two origins that both work. In Russian it means "faith"; in Latin vera means "true" — and unusually for such a pair, the two senses reinforce rather than contradict each other.
12,223 in the 1940s
#352
Stephanie Stephanie is a girl's name from the Greek for crown or garland, the feminine of Stephen.
11,953 in the 1940s
#353
Marianne Marianne is the personification of the French Republic, and her bust stands in every town hall in France — so the name carries a civic weight in one market that it has nowhere else.
11,952 in the 1940s
#354
Jill Jill is a girl's name, a medieval short form of Gillian, and it is half of the oldest surviving English nursery rhyme pair.
11,890 in the 1940s
#355
Mattie Mattie serves two entirely unrelated names — Martha, which is Aramaic for a lady, and Matilda, which is Germanic for might in battle.
11,852 in the 1940s
#356
Minnie Minnie Mouse did not make Minnie popular.
11,811 in the 1940s
#358
Michele Michele is a girl's name, the single-l spelling of Michelle, from a Hebrew question meaning who is like God.
11,734 in the 1940s
#359
Caroline Caroline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man," the French feminine of Charles by way of the Latin Carolus.
11,638 in the 1940s
#360
Veronica Veronica is a girl's name from a Latin phrase meaning true image, and the saint behind it was invented to explain a relic — the cloth came first, and the woman was named after it.
11,540 in the 1940s
#362
Rosie Rosie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "rose."
11,496 in the 1940s
#363
Patty Patty belonged to Martha before it belonged to Patricia — the pet form was reassigned in the twentieth century, one of several nicknames in English that quietly changed parents.
11,476 in the 1940s
#365
Stella Stella is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "star."
11,383 in the 1940s
#366
Elsie Elsie is a girl's name that began as a Scottish short form of Elspeth, itself a Scottish form of Elizabeth.
11,285 in the 1940s
#367
Bessie Bessie is a girl's name meaning God is my oath, a pet form of Elizabeth.
11,101 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.