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.

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 no market — 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 on record, which is a fall of more than 99 percent.
14,908 in the 1940s
#324
Lynne Lynne now ranks 2,155th in France and 14,047th 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.
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
#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
#368
Carrie Carrie is a girl's name, a pet form of Caroline meaning free man through Charles.
11,049 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.