1950s Baby Names

5,155 names were given to children in the United States between 1950 and 1959, 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

#435
Cecil Cecil means blind, from a Roman family name, and the saint who made it famous is patron of music on the strength of one ambiguous line in her own account of her wedding day.
12,287 in the 1950s
#437
Alexander Alexander is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "defender of men," from alexein, to defend, and aner, man.
12,232 in the 1950s
#445
Antonio Antonio is a boy's name of Etruscan origin whose meaning is unknown.
11,745 in the 1950s
#450
Oscar Oscar is a boy's name with two competing origins: the Irish os, deer, plus cara, friend, giving "deer lover," or the Old Norse Ásgeirr, meaning "god's spear."
11,442 in the 1950s
#451
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.
11,390 in the 1950s
#455
Aaron Aaron is a boy's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is not established.
11,229 in the 1950s
#457
Gregg
11,127 in the 1950s
#465
Marshall Marshall began as a stable hand — the word meant a horse servant, and it climbed to become the highest rank in several armies.
10,870 in the 1950s
#467
Neal Neal has no agreed meaning — champion, cloud and passionate are all proposed for the Irish Niall and none is established.
10,756 in the 1950s
#471
Mario Mario is a boy's name from a Roman family name of uncertain meaning, and the video game character was named after a real landlord — Mario Segale, who owned the warehouse Nintendo rented in Seattle.
10,549 in the 1950s
#472
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.
10,547 in the 1950s
#475
Shawn Shawn is a boy's name, the phonetic American respelling of the Irish Seán, which is itself the Irish form of John.
10,456 in the 1950s
#479
Ricardo Ricardo is a boy's name meaning brave ruler, the Spanish and Portuguese form of Richard.
10,377 in the 1950s
#480
Randal
10,374 in the 1950s
#486
Sam Sam is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God has heard," a short form of Samuel.
10,171 in the 1950s
#487
Nathan Nathan is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he gave," from Natan.
10,157 in the 1950s
#491
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.
10,038 in the 1950s
#493
Terrance Terrance respells Terrence, and the name descends from a Roman playwright born enslaved in North Africa — Terence was freed by his owner and his Latin became a school text for centuries.
9,982 in the 1950s
#495
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.
9,900 in the 1950s
#496
Luis Luis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior."
9,865 in the 1950s
#502
Lance Lance does not mean a spear.
9,737 in the 1950s
#503
Hugh Hugh is a boy's name from a Germanic word for mind or spirit, brought to Britain by the Normans.
9,717 in the 1950s
#504
Rene Rene is a name from the Latin for reborn, given at baptism to mark spiritual rebirth.
9,679 in the 1950s
#510
Ross Ross means a headland or a promontory, from Gaelic, and Scotland ranks it 328th — its strongest market, ahead of Ireland at 347th and far ahead of the United States at 1465th.
9,536 in the 1950s
#511
Wallace Wallace means foreigner, and the irony is complete — it is the Anglo-Saxon word for the Britons who were there first, so Scotland's national hero carries a name meaning outsider in his own country.
9,502 in the 1950s
#514
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.
9,359 in the 1950s
#515
Clayton Clayton means the settlement on clay, from an English place name that describes the ground it stood on.
9,345 in the 1950s
#519
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.
9,221 in the 1950s
#532
Benny Benny means son of the right hand, and Jacob overruled the name at the deathbed — Rachel called the child son of my sorrow as she died, and his father renamed him on the spot.
8,890 in the 1950s
#536
Marcus Marcus is a boy's name of Latin origin most likely meaning "of Mars," and it was one of only about eighteen first names Roman men used.
8,748 in the 1950s
#537
Edgar Edgar is a boy's name meaning wealthy spear, and it is one of very few Old English names still in wide use.
8,639 in the 1950s
#540
Wade Wade means a river crossing, and there is a second Wade entirely — a Germanic sea giant from Old English legend whose story Chaucer refers to as though everyone knew it, and which is now lost.
8,542 in the 1950s
#541
Jesus Jesus is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "the Lord is salvation."
8,490 in the 1950s
#542
Kenny Kenny sits on top of two different Gaelic names that English collapsed into one — Cináed, born of fire, and Coinneach, handsome.
8,457 in the 1950s
#543
Lyle Lyle is a boy's name from the Norman French for "the island," and the l at the front is the definite article rather than part of the word.
8,425 in the 1950s
#544
Morris Morris means dark-skinned, from the Latin for a Moor — and the morris dance carries the same word, having been thought to imitate Moorish dancing when it reached England.
8,390 in the 1950s
#547
Alex Alex is a name of Greek origin meaning "defender of mankind."
8,292 in the 1950s
#548
Sammy Sammy means God has heard, or possibly name of God — the Hebrew admits both readings, and the Bible's own explanation of Samuel uses a pun on asking that fits neither.
8,256 in the 1950s
#554
Carlton Carlton means the settlement of the free peasants, and the word for those peasants became an insult — ceorl gave English churl and churlish, so the name preserves a class that the language later turned against.
7,967 in the 1950s
#556
Dwayne Dwayne means the little dark one, from an Irish surname built on the word for black — the same root that gives Dublin its name, which means the black pool the city grew around.
7,912 in the 1950s
#557
Raul Raul means wolf counsel, and it is the same name as Ralph and Rudolph — one Norse compound that entered Spanish, English and German separately and ended up looking like three different names.
7,810 in the 1950s
#558
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.
7,796 in the 1950s
#559
Ron
7,785 in the 1950s
#561
Andre Andre is a boy's name, the French form of Andrew, from the Greek for manly.
7,641 in the 1950s
#562
Roberto Roberto means bright fame, the Italian and Spanish form of Robert, and both halves of the compound mean roughly the same thing — which is normal in Germanic naming rather than a redundancy.
7,636 in the 1950s
#567
Kyle Kyle is a boy's name of Scottish Gaelic origin meaning "narrow strait," taken from a district of Ayrshire.
7,471 in the 1950s
#568
Max Max is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "greatest."
7,465 in the 1950s
#570
Troy Troy is a boy's name with two independent sources — an Irish surname meaning foot soldier, and the ancient city.
7,459 in the 1950s

What made a 1950s name

Nothing about the sound of it. A name is on this page because children in the United States were registered with it between 1950 and 1959, and its position is simply how many. Every list of "1950s 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.