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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#1,306Roman Roman is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "citizen of Rome," from Romanus.1,115 in the 1940s
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#1,310Santiago Santiago is a boy's name of Spanish origin meaning "Saint James."1,111 in the 1940s
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#1,324Emilie Emilie is a girl's name, the French and Danish form of Latin Aemilia, usually given as rival.1,092 in the 1940s
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#1,332Fletcher Fletcher is a boy's name from an English occupational surname for a maker of arrows.1,072 in the 1940s
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#1,335Reggie Reggie is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "ruler's counsel."1,069 in the 1940s
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#1,340Rocky Rocky is a boy's name that began as a nickname for Rocco and similar names, or for a tough person.1,064 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 The statistics offices do not publish names given to very few children in a year, so a gap can also mean the count dropped below the threshold rather than to nothing.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.