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

#529
Guadalupe Guadalupe is half Arabic and half Latin — wadi, a valley or river, joined to a word for a wolf.
8,966 in the 1950s
#530
Iris Iris is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "rainbow."
8,944 in the 1950s
#531
Lana Lana is a girl's name with several competing origins — a Hawaiian word for calm, a Slavic short form of Svetlana, and a Hollywood invention of the 1930s.
8,932 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
#533
Jeannette Jeannette means God is gracious, a French double diminutive of Jeanne — and the -ette ending is doing the same work twice, since Jeanne is already a feminine of Jean.
8,863 in the 1950s
#534
Robyn Robyn is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "bright fame."
8,843 in the 1950s
#535
Jenny Jenny began as a pet form of Jane, not Jennifer — the two attached to each other only in the twentieth century, and Jennifer was almost unknown outside Cornwall before 1900.
8,781 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
#538
Luann
8,627 in the 1950s
#539
Stella Stella is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "star."
8,602 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
#545
Marty
8,387 in the 1950s
#546
Trudy
8,348 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
#549
Mickey
8,218 in the 1950s
#550
Bennie Bennie means son of the right hand, and Jacob renamed the child to get there — his dying mother called him son of my sorrow, and his father would not let the name stand.
8,200 in the 1950s
#551
Christy Christy serves both Christine and Christopher, so it is used for both sexes — 98 percent of recorded births are female, but the masculine use remains ordinary in Ireland.
8,161 in the 1950s
#552
Rosemarie Rosemarie looks like Rose plus Marie, and as a name it is — but the herb rosemary has nothing to do with either, and the resemblance is one of the neatest coincidences in naming.
8,134 in the 1950s
#553
Rickie
8,119 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
#555
Tanya Tanya is a Russian pet form of Tatiana, whose meaning is not known — the Roman family name behind it may be Sabine rather than Latin, and the Sabine language is barely attested at all.
7,920 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
#560
Cassandra Cassandra is a girl's name from Greek myth, borne by a prophet cursed to see the future and never be believed.
7,698 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
#563
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.
7,598 in the 1950s
#564
Ira Ira means watchful, and it is 12 percent female on record despite being a man's name in the Hebrew Bible — one of David's priests carries it in Samuel.
7,579 in the 1950s
#565
Shannon Shannon is a name from Ireland's longest river, and it is 86 percent female on record.
7,544 in the 1950s
#566
Naomi Naomi is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "pleasantness," from No'omi.
7,495 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
#569
Jeri
7,464 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
#571
Earnest Earnest respells Ernest, and the Germanic behind it is not mild — eornost meant vigor in battle, seriousness of the deadly kind, long before it settled into the sense of being sincere.
7,447 in the 1950s
#572
Marguerite Marguerite is a girl's name meaning pearl, and it is also the French word for the daisy — so the name carries a flower and a gemstone at once.
7,439 in the 1950s
#573
Virgil Virgil is misspelled and always has been — the poet's name was Vergilius, and medieval scribes changed the e to an i by association with virgo, which is how a Roman family name acquired a meaning it never had.
7,408 in the 1950s
#574
Francisco Francisco means Frenchman, and Saint Francis was given it as a nickname — his father traded in France and called him the little Frenchman.
7,371 in the 1950s
#575
Brett Brett means a Breton — someone from Brittany, which is named for the Britons who fled there when the Anglo-Saxons arrived.
7,364 in the 1950s
#576
Otis Otis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "wealth" or "fortune."
7,359 in the 1950s

What Made a 1950s Name

Children in the United States were registered with it between 1950 and 1959. 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.