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

#371
Rosemarie Rosemarie looks like Rose plus Marie, and as a name it is — but the herb rosemary has nothing to do with either, and the resemblance is one of the neatest coincidences in naming.
10,843 in the 1940s
#372
Sheryl Sheryl respells Cheryl, which is itself a twentieth-century invention — it appears in American records around 1920 with no traceable parent, and the meanings offered for it were supplied afterwards.
10,775 in the 1940s
#376
Jacquelyn Jacquelyn means supplanter, and the chain is long — it is an American respelling of Jacqueline, the French feminine of Jacques, which is James, which is Jacob.
10,696 in the 1940s
#377
Jennifer Jennifer is a girl's name, the Cornish form of the Welsh Gwenhwyfar, the name of King Arthur's queen.
10,691 in the 1940s
#380
Claire Claire is a girl's name of French origin meaning "clear" or "bright," from the Latin clarus.
10,497 in the 1940s
#381
Colleen Colleen means girl in Irish, and it is barely used in Ireland — it is an Irish-American name rather than an Irish one.
10,478 in the 1940s
#382
Bonita
10,405 in the 1940s
#387
Dana Dana is a name with several unrelated sources — a Danish origin, a Hebrew feminine of Daniel, and an Irish mother goddess.
10,288 in the 1940s
#389
Nellie Nellie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "shining light."
10,244 in the 1940s
#390
Lana Lana is a girl's name with several competing origins — a Hawaiian word for calm, a Slavic short form of Svetlana, and a Hollywood invention of the 1930s.
10,209 in the 1940s
#391
Denise Denise is a girl's name, the French feminine of Denis, and like it traces to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine.
10,122 in the 1940s
#392
Vickie Vickie is an American name that now charts only in France — it peaked at 6,957 US births in 1956 and has left the American rankings entirely, surviving at 6,405th in a market it was never native to.
10,104 in the 1940s
#393
Dianna Dianna means the shining one, and the root is the same one behind Zeus and Jupiter — an Indo-European word for the bright daytime sky that also gives us the ordinary word day.
10,076 in the 1940s
#394
Dixie Dixie names the American South and nobody knows why — the leading account is a French ten-dollar note printed dix in Louisiana, and the rival is the Mason-Dixon line.
10,062 in the 1940s
#395
Toni Toni has no established meaning, because Antonia does not — the Roman family name Antonius is probably Etruscan, and the flower reading attached to Anthony is a Renaissance invention.
9,984 in the 1940s
#398
Dora Dora means gift, and it is the end of several names rather than a name in its own right — Theodora, Isidora and Dorothea all supply it, and Dorothy means the same thing with the halves reversed.
9,766 in the 1940s
#400
Jeannette Jeannette means God is gracious, a French double diminutive of Jeanne — and the -ette ending is doing the same work twice, since Jeanne is already a feminine of Jean.
9,646 in the 1940s
#401
Madeline Madeline is a girl's name meaning "of Magdala," a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee whose name comes from the Hebrew migdal, a tower.
9,626 in the 1940s
#406
Agnes Agnes is a girl's name from the Greek for pure, and the reason its saint is shown with a lamb is a Latin pun — agnus, lamb, sounds like the Greek hagnos but is a completely different word.
9,543 in the 1940s
#407
Geneva Geneva is not named after the Swiss city — it is a form of Genevieve, whose own meaning is unsettled, and the city's name comes from a Celtic word for a bend or estuary entirely separately.
9,532 in the 1940s
#408
Nina Nina is a girl's name with several unrelated origins.
9,520 in the 1940s
#409
Carla Carla is a girl's name meaning free man, the Italian and Spanish feminine of Carlo.
9,497 in the 1940s
#411
Nora Nora is a girl's name that developed as a short form of longer names, chiefly Honora and Eleanor, and is now used independently.
9,480 in the 1940s
#414
Velma Velma is an invented name with no root at all — it appears in nineteenth-century America built on the pattern of Selma and Thelma, and the Germanic derivations offered for it were attached afterwards.
9,310 in the 1940s
#415
Susie Susie means lily, shortened from Susan, and the Hebrew word was borrowed from Egyptian — where it may have named a lotus rather than a lily, which changes the flower entirely.
9,236 in the 1940s
#416
Lydia Lydia is a girl's name meaning "woman from Lydia," an ancient kingdom in what is now western Turkey.
9,215 in the 1940s
#419
Leona Leona means lioness, and it is reviving across six markets — the United States 429th, France 556th, Scotland 631st, Ireland 705th and England and Wales 716th, all within 290 places.
9,047 in the 1940s
#420
Mae Mae is a girl's name in France, generally read as a form of Mae or as a feminine of the Breton Mahé.
9,032 in the 1940s
#422
Deloris
8,984 in the 1940s
#423
Naomi Naomi is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "pleasantness," from No'omi.
8,956 in the 1940s
#424
Myra Myra was invented by a poet — Fulke Greville coined it around 1580, probably by rearranging Mary, and every later meaning attached to it was supplied after the fact.
8,884 in the 1940s
#427
Christina Christina is a girl's name from the Latin for a follower of Christ, and the fullest of the family that includes Christine and Kristina.
8,844 in the 1940s
#429
Cora Cora is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "maiden," from kore.
8,783 in the 1940s
#433
Dawn Dawn is a girl's name taken directly from the English word for daybreak, and it is the English counterpart of Aurora rather than a translation of it.
8,669 in the 1940s
#434
Beth Beth is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath," a short form of Elizabeth, and the seven in the Hebrew is the same idea as the oath.
8,661 in the 1940s
#435
Bernadette Bernadette is a girl's name meaning brave as a bear, and its bearer was a fourteen-year-old miller's daughter whose visions at Lourdes in 1858 turned a Pyrenean grotto into one of the most visited places on earth.
8,631 in the 1940s
#438
Wendy Wendy is usually credited to J.
8,428 in the 1940s
#439
Yolanda Yolanda means violet, and the flower reaches it through a chain of respellings — the Greek Iolanthe became Violante in Italian by association with viola, and Spanish then rendered that form as the Yolanda we know.
8,366 in the 1940s
#440
Alberta Alberta means noble and bright, and a Canadian province carries it — Alberta was named for Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, whose full name was Louise Caroline Alberta.
8,357 in the 1940s
#442
Viola Viola means violet, and it names the flower, the instrument and a Shakespeare heroine from the same Latin root.
8,307 in the 1940s
#444
Antoinette Antoinette means little Antoine, and the meaning usually given for the parent name — flower — is a false etymology.
8,244 in the 1940s
#449
Myrna
8,186 in the 1940s
#451
Marguerite Marguerite is a girl's name meaning pearl, and it is also the French word for the daisy — so the name carries a flower and a gemstone at once.
8,121 in the 1940s
#453
Pearl Pearl is a girl's name taken from the gem, and it charts in all seven markets.
8,060 in the 1940s
#455
Cecilia Cecilia is a girl's name of Latin origin from the Roman family name Caecilius, which derives from caecus, meaning blind.
8,021 in the 1940s
#458
Ernestine Ernestine is the feminine of the same Germanic word as Earnest in this group — eornost, the vigor of a fight.
7,982 in the 1940s
#459
Gertrude Gertrude is a girl's name from Germanic elements meaning spear-strength, and its saint is patron of cats — a modern attribution that no medieval source supports.
7,948 in the 1940s
#460
Verna Verna means springtime, from the Latin for spring — and it is reviving, though from a low base at 3,464th in the United States on a 1918 peak of 1,885.
7,922 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.