1950s Baby Names

15,671 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

#433
Roland Roland is a boy's name meaning famous land, and its bearer is the hero of France's national epic — a knight who dies at Roncevaux because he is too proud to blow his horn for help.
12,354 in the 1950s
#434
Wilma Wilma means resolute protection, and The Flintstones did nothing for it.
12,321 in the 1950s
#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
#436
Maryann Maryann joins two names whose own meanings are unsettled — Mary has never been securely derived from the Hebrew, and Ann means grace, so only half of the compound has a firm reading.
12,236 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
#438
Gladys Gladys is a girl's name from Welsh, usually taken as a form of Claudia — which would give it the meaning lame.
12,222 in the 1950s
#439
Kristine Kristine means a follower of Christ, and it is the fourth spelling of this name to appear in our gap band — after Kristin, Kristen and Kristina, all four of them American-led rather than Scandinavian.
12,085 in the 1950s
#440
Bonita
12,082 in the 1950s
#441
Lucille Lucille is a girl's name from the Latin for light, given to children born at daybreak.
12,068 in the 1950s
#442
Teri Teri descends from a name with no agreed meaning — Theresa has been traced to a Greek island, to a word for summer and to one for hunting, and none of the three has carried the field.
11,899 in the 1950s
#443
Thelma Thelma is a girl's name invented for a novel in 1887, and the Greek word it was probably built from means "will" or "volition."
11,812 in the 1950s
#444
Gale
11,774 in the 1950s
#445
Antonio Antonio is a boy's name of Etruscan origin whose meaning is unknown.
11,745 in the 1950s
#446
Nora Nora is a girl's name that developed as a short form of longer names, chiefly Honora and Eleanor, and is now used independently.
11,603 in the 1950s
#447
Ethel Ethel is a girl's name from an Old English word meaning noble, and it is not a name in its own right in that language — it is the first half of longer names like Ethelred, cut off and used alone.
11,600 in the 1950s
#448
Karla Karla means free man, and the Germanic word named a free peasant — so a name that now reads as aristocratic began at the bottom of the free classes and rose to name emperors.
11,467 in the 1950s
#449
Marla
11,452 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
#452
Bertha Bertha is a girl's name from a Germanic word meaning bright, and it was Charlemagne's mother's name.
11,293 in the 1950s
#453
Deanna Deanna was popularized by a stage name — the actress born Edna Mae Durbin was renamed Deanna Durbin in 1936, and American births rose from almost nothing to a peak of 4,331 in 1970.
11,260 in the 1950s
#454
Pam
11,241 in the 1950s
#455
Aaron Aaron is a boy's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is not established.
11,229 in the 1950s
#456
Mona Mona in Mona Lisa is not a name — it contracts ma donna, my lady, so the painting's title is closer to Madam Lisa than to anyone actually called Mona.
11,181 in the 1950s
#457
Gregg
11,127 in the 1950s
#458
Frankie Frankie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "free man" or "Frenchman."
11,111 in the 1950s
#459
Eleanor Eleanor is a girl's name that traces back to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the twelfth-century queen of France and later England, whose own name, Aliénor, is widely explained as "the other Aenor," distinguishing her from her mother, also named Aenor.
11,072 in the 1950s
#460
Ella Ella is a girl's name with two distinct origins. The Norman French line derives from the Germanic element ali, meaning other or foreign, while a Hebrew line gives Ella as a word for a terebinth tree.
11,066 in the 1950s
#461
Vera Vera is a girl's name with two origins that both work. In Russian it means "faith"; in Latin vera means "true" — and unusually for such a pair, the two senses reinforce rather than contradict each other.
11,061 in the 1950s
#462
Bernice Bernice is a girl's name meaning bringer of victory, and it is the same name as Veronica — both descend from the Greek Berenike by different routes.
11,044 in the 1950s
#463
Sheri Sheri means darling, and it is French by way of a misreading — English took the adjective chérie as though it were a name, which is why it has no history as one in France itself.
10,985 in the 1950s
#464
Claude Claude is a name from a Roman family name meaning lame, one of very few widely used names with an unflattering literal sense.
10,917 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
#466
Beatrice Beatrice is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "she who brings happiness."
10,768 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
#468
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.
10,701 in the 1950s
#469
Florence Florence is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "blossoming" or "flourishing."
10,618 in the 1950s
#470
Betsy Betsy is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath."
10,561 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
#473
Sidney Sidney is a name of Old English origin meaning "wide meadow."
10,524 in the 1950s
#474
Faye Faye is a girl's name of Old French origin meaning "fairy," from a word that traces back to the Fates of Roman religion.
10,492 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
#476
Claire Claire is a girl's name of French origin meaning "clear" or "bright," from the Latin clarus.
10,413 in the 1950s
#477
Myra Myra was invented by a poet — Fulke Greville coined it around 1580, probably by rearranging Mary, and every later meaning attached to it was supplied after the fact.
10,391 in the 1950s
#478
Sherrie
10,388 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

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.