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

#481
Cecelia Cecelia means blind, and the saint who carries it became the patron of music through what looks like a misreading — a line in her acta about music playing at her wedding was later taken to mean she made it.
7,368 in the 1940s
#482
Myrtle Myrtle means the evergreen shrub, and it was the plant of Aphrodite — carried by Greek and Roman brides long before the Victorians made it a name.
7,289 in the 1940s
#483
Delbert Delbert is recorded in one country and nowhere else — every one of its 47,056 births is American, with no births in any other market in any year on record, which is rare even among American coinages.
7,248 in the 1940s
#484
Francine Francine means Frenchwoman, and it is a French diminutive of a name that already means French — so it reads as a small French person, which is circular in a way few names manage.
7,225 in the 1940s
#485
Olivia Olivia is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "olive tree," used as the feminine form of Oliver.
7,218 in the 1940s
#486
Eunice Eunice means good victory, and she is named in the New Testament as Timothy's mother — one of very few women whose faith Paul credits by name, alongside her own mother Lois.
7,201 in the 1940s
#487
Hubert Hubert means bright mind, and its saint is the patron of hunters — Saint Hubertus, whose stag with a crucifix between its antlers is the emblem on every bottle of Jägermeister.
7,119 in the 1940s
#488
Miriam Miriam is the origin of Mary, Maria, Marie, Maureen, Marion and Molly — the largest name family in Europe — and it still charts in all seven markets, with its top four inside 46 places of each other.
7,107 in the 1940s
#489
Reginald Reginald means counsel-power, and England and Wales ranks it 229th on 217 births against 1,285th in the United States — one of the sharpest British-versus-American splits in this group.
7,100 in the 1940s
#490
Clayton Clayton means the settlement on clay, from an English place name that describes the ground it stood on.
7,080 in the 1940s
#491
Jennie Jennie began as a Scottish pet form of Jean and only later attached to Jennifer, which is a Cornish name with no connection to it.
7,046 in the 1940s
#492
Bette
7,039 in the 1940s
#493
Bettye
6,997 in the 1940s
#494
Homer Homer means hostage, which makes it the third pledge name in this group alongside Gage and Giselle — and the ancient tradition that the poet was blind may have been read backward out of a dialect word rather than recorded from life.
6,995 in the 1940s
#495
Betsy Betsy is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath."
6,985 in the 1940s
#496
Ricky Ricky is a boy's name, the pet form of Richard or Ricardo, meaning strong ruler.
6,978 in the 1940s
#497
Daisy Daisy is a girl's name of English origin naming the flower, and its meaning is unusually literal: daisy comes from the Old English dægesege, "day's eye," because the flower opens its petals at dawn and closes them at dusk.
6,945 in the 1940s
#498
Alex Alex is a name of Greek origin meaning "defender of mankind."
6,912 in the 1940s
#499
Horace Horace has no reliable meaning — the Roman family name Horatius resists derivation, and France ranks it 2,765th against the United States at 6,218th, so the poet's name is now used more readily in French than in English.
6,902 in the 1940s
#500
Bettie
6,887 in the 1940s
#501
Saundra
6,876 in the 1940s
#502
Sondra
6,729 in the 1940s
#503
Candace Candace is a job title mistaken for a name — Kandake was the word for the queen mother of Kush, and Acts uses it as though it were personal, so a Sudanese royal office became an American given name.
6,720 in the 1940s
#504
Marcella Marcella means dedicated to Mars, and it is reviving — 948th in the United States, 1,386th in England and Wales, 1,507th in Canada and 6,569th in France, from a peak more than a century old.
6,691 in the 1940s
#505
Laurence Laurence is the one name on this site that changes sex at the Channel: it is a man's name in English and a woman's name in French.
6,686 in the 1940s
#506
Rex Rex means king, and it is the plain Latin nominative — which makes it the pair to Regis, the genitive meaning of the king.
6,682 in the 1940s
#507
Sharron
6,584 in the 1940s
#508
Erma Erma is the only name in this group recorded in a single market across its whole history — every one of its 55,187 births is American, and it charts nowhere else in any year on record.
6,582 in the 1940s
#509
Violet Violet is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "purple," taken from viola, the Latin word for the purple flower.
6,576 in the 1940s
#510
Rudolph Rudolph means famous wolf, and the reindeer was invented to sell things — a Montgomery Ward copywriter wrote him for a giveaway booklet in 1939, which makes him a corporate creation rather than a folk one.
6,574 in the 1940s
#511
Byron Byron means at the cattle sheds — a working place name that became shorthand for romantic poetry, which is a longer journey than most names make.
6,541 in the 1940s
#512
Shelby Shelby is a girl's name from an English place name of Norse formation meaning a willow farm.
6,537 in the 1940s
#513
Loren Loren means from Laurentum, a town rather than a plant — the laurel reading came second, and the town itself was probably named for its laurels, so the connection is real but runs the long way round.
6,535 in the 1940s
#514
Fannie Fannie means Frenchwoman, shortened from Frances, and it left English-speaking use for reasons of slang rather than fashion — the word acquired a sense the name could not survive.
6,507 in the 1940s
#515
Archie Archie is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "genuine and bold."
6,505 in the 1940s
#516
Jesus Jesus is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "the Lord is salvation."
6,456 in the 1940s
#517
Alton Alton means the settlement at the river's source, and that is more specific than the old town reading usually given — the Old English element is a spring or wellhead, not age.
6,414 in the 1940s
#518
Penelope Penelope is a girl's name of Greek origin, borne in Homer's Odyssey by the wife of Odysseus, who held off suitors for twenty years by weaving a shroud she unpicked each night.
6,383 in the 1940s
#519
Della Della has no single parent — it shortens Adela, Delia and Adelaide alike, and it is reviving, at 563rd in the United States and 1,010th in Scotland.
6,365 in the 1940s
#520
Ruben Ruben is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "behold, a son."
6,357 in the 1940s
#521
Merle Merle means blackbird, and it is one of the mixed names on this site — 33 percent of recorded births are female, and it is reviving.
6,341 in the 1940s
#522
Troy Troy is a boy's name with two independent sources — an Irish surname meaning foot soldier, and the ancient city.
6,310 in the 1940s
#523
Leland Leland means fallow land — ground deliberately left unplowed for a season.
6,280 in the 1940s
#524
Willis Willis means son of Will, and the Will behind it is William — a name so common in medieval England that its diminutives generated a whole family of surnames, of which this is one.
6,261 in the 1940s
#525
Trudy
6,201 in the 1940s
#526
Marc Marc is a boy's name from a Roman name probably meaning dedicated to Mars, the god of war, and it is the source of the month of March.
6,199 in the 1940s
#527
Katie Katie is a girl's name of Greek origin, a diminutive of Katherine whose meaning has never been settled.
6,192 in the 1940s
#528
Flora Flora is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "flower," the Roman goddess whose festival was among the least decorous in the calendar.
6,191 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.