1940s Baby Names

13,557 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

#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
#436
Max Max is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "greatest."
8,549 in the 1940s
#437
Wendell Wendell names a people rather than a quality — the Wends were the Slavic populations of eastern Germany, so the name records who someone's neighbors thought they were rather than anything they did.
8,498 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
#441
Kent Kent is the oldest recorded place name in England — Cantium appears in Greek writing before the Roman invasion, and its meaning was already uncertain to the Romans who wrote it down.
8,351 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
#443
Jonathan Jonathan is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "Yahweh has given," from Yehonatan.
8,296 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
#445
Fredrick Fredrick is an American respelling that ranks higher in England and Wales than in the United States — 934th against 1730th, which reverses the usual direction for a respelling.
8,240 in the 1940s
#446
Clifton Clifton means the settlement by the cliff, and it is the same first element as Clifford — one describes a ford below the cliff and the other the farm on top of it.
8,202 in the 1940s
#447
Carlos Carlos is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man."
8,198 in the 1940s
#448
Luther Luther means army of the people, and its weight comes from a surname rather than a saint — Martin Luther's family name became a given name across the Protestant world, and then across Black America.
8,193 in the 1940s
#449
Myrna
8,186 in the 1940s
#450
Gerard Gerard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave with the spear.
8,138 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
#452
Ben Ben is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "son," used both as a short form of Benjamin and as a name in its own right.
8,103 in the 1940s
#453
Pearl Pearl is a girl's name taken from the gem, and it charts in all seven markets we track.
8,060 in the 1940s
#454
Perry Perry means at the pear tree, from an English place name — and our data marks it reviving, at 1373rd in the United States and 1681st in England and Wales.
8,052 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
#456
Gale
8,009 in the 1940s
#457
Tim Tim means honoring God, and France ranks it 277th — far above the United States at 3221st, which is the reverse of what an English short form would normally do.
8,009 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 our data marks it reviving, though from a low base at 3464th in the United States on a 1918 peak of 1,885.
7,922 in the 1940s
#461
Hattie Hattie is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "home ruler."
7,900 in the 1940s
#462
Iris Iris is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "rainbow."
7,880 in the 1940s
#463
Renee Renee is a girl's name from the Latin for reborn, given at baptism to mark spiritual rebirth.
7,880 in the 1940s
#464
Nelson Nelson means son of Neil, and the admiral made it a given name — it was a surname until Trafalgar, after which parents across the English-speaking world started using it as a first name outright.
7,854 in the 1940s
#465
Ramona Ramona means protecting counsel, and a novel made it — Helen Hunt Jackson wrote Ramona in 1884 to expose the treatment of Native Californians, and readers took the romance and ignored the argument.
7,821 in the 1940s
#466
Ira Ira means watchful, and it is 12 percent female in our records despite being a man's name in the Hebrew Bible — one of David's priests carries it in Samuel.
7,813 in the 1940s
#467
Guadalupe Guadalupe is half Arabic and half Latin — wadi, a valley or river, joined to a word for a wolf.
7,812 in the 1940s
#468
Irma Irma means whole or complete, and it is the surviving fragment of much longer Germanic names — Irmgard and Irmintrud both begin with it, and only the first element outlasted them.
7,790 in the 1940s
#469
Otis Otis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "wealth" or "fortune."
7,765 in the 1940s
#470
Becky Becky means to bind, shortened from Rebecca, and the Hebrew is genuinely uncertain — a knotted cord and a snare are both proposed, and the reading has never been settled.
7,732 in the 1940s
#471
Laverne Laverne means the alder grove, and the goddess sometimes cited for it is a poor fit — Laverna was the Roman patroness of thieves, which is not a namesake most sources mention when they list her.
7,723 in the 1940s
#472
Clinton Clinton means the settlement on the hill, from an English place name — and the two American presidents who carried it did so by adoption and by surname, not by descent from the place.
7,720 in the 1940s
#473
Terrence Terrence descends from a Roman playwright who was born enslaved in North Africa — Terence was freed by his owner, wrote six comedies that survive complete, and shaped Latin prose style for centuries.
7,701 in the 1940s
#474
Lola Lola is a girl's name of Spanish origin meaning "sorrows."
7,663 in the 1940s
#475
Hilda Hilda means battle, and it is the surviving fragment of longer Germanic names — Hildegard, Brunhild and Matilda all contain it, and the element outlived most of the compounds it belonged to.
7,572 in the 1940s
#476
Randolph Randolph means shield-wolf, and the shield in it is specifically the rim — the Germanic rand names the edge of the shield rather than the whole thing, which is the part that met an enemy's blade.
7,570 in the 1940s
#477
Dick
7,562 in the 1940s
#478
Lena Lena is a girl's name used as a short form of Helena, Magdalena and Elena, so it usually carries the sense "light" or "torch."
7,398 in the 1940s
#479
Lowell Lowell means little wolf, and it is Norman French rather than English — louvel is a diminutive of loup, so the name is affectionate about an animal most cultures feared.
7,370 in the 1940s
#480
Lula Lula has no single parent — it shortens Louise, Lucille and Tallulah alike, and our data marks it reviving, ranking 1306th in England and Wales against 1938th in the United States.
7,369 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.