1940s Baby Names
1,256 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.
-
#4,341Ariel Ariel means lion of God, and The Little Mermaid moved it hard and briefly.131 in the 1940s 9 of 10 years
-
#4,351Campbell Campbell is a unisex name of Scottish origin meaning "crooked mouth".131 in the 1940s
-
#4,473Lorry Lorry is a unisex name that began as a pet form of Laurence, from the Latin Laurentius, "from Laurentum."125 in the 1940s 8 of 10 years
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 The statistics offices do not publish names given to very few children in a year, so a gap can also mean the count dropped below the threshold rather than to nothing.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.