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.
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#8,515Elspeth Elspeth is a Scottish girl's name meaning "God is my oath."27 in the 1940s 4 of 10 years
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#8,523Easton Easton is a boy's name of English origin meaning "east settlement," from the Old English east and tun.27 in the 1940s 5 of 10 years
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#8,524Rhys Rhys is a boy's name of Welsh origin meaning "ardor" or "enthusiasm," and it gave English the surname Price by way of a Welsh word for son.27 in the 1940s 4 of 10 years
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#8,527Micah Micah is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "who is like Yahweh?" — a rhetorical question expecting the answer that nobody is.27 in the 1940s 3 of 10 years
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#8,544Remy Remy is a name of Latin origin meaning "oarsman" or "rower."27 in the 1940s 5 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 The statistics offices do not publish names given to very few children in a year, so a gap can also mean the count dropped below the threshold rather than to nothing.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.