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

#721
Polly Polly is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, a pet form of Mary whose meaning has never been settled.
5,068 in the 1950s
#722
Adrian Adrian is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "from Hadria," a town in northern Italy that also gave its name to the Adriatic Sea.
5,042 in the 1950s
#723
Leigh Leigh means a woodland clearing, and the same word is hiding at the end of dozens of modern names — the -leigh in Kayleigh and Ashlyn's cousins is this word, borrowed for its sound rather than its sense.
5,024 in the 1950s
#724
Oliver Oliver is a boy's name that entered England with the Normans and has a genuinely disputed origin.
5,019 in the 1950s
#725
Timmy
5,017 in the 1950s
#726
Hope Hope is a girl's name of Old English origin taken from the virtue, from hopian.
5,013 in the 1950s
#727
Denis Denis is a boy's name from the Greek god of wine, and Ireland places it 240th — its strongest market by a wide margin.
5,012 in the 1950s
#728
Fernando Fernando means bold journey, and it is Germanic rather than Spanish — the Visigoths brought it to Iberia, where it became the royal name of Castile and Aragon and then traveled to the Americas.
5,012 in the 1950s
#729
Camille Camille is a unisex name of Latin origin, from a Roman word for a young attendant at religious ceremonies.
4,999 in the 1950s
#730
Lowell Lowell means little wolf, and it is Norman French rather than English — louvel is a diminutive of loup, so the name is affectionate about an animal most cultures feared.
4,939 in the 1950s
#731
Allison Allison is a girl's name of Norman French origin, from Alis — the medieval form of Alice — plus a diminutive ending.
4,936 in the 1950s
#732
Lorenzo Lorenzo is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "from Laurentum," the Italian and Spanish form of Laurence.
4,929 in the 1950s
#733
Pearl Pearl is a girl's name taken from the gem, and it charts in all seven markets we track.
4,915 in the 1950s
#734
Julian Julian is a boy's name of Latin origin, derived from the Roman family name Julius.
4,914 in the 1950s
#735
Sabrina Sabrina is the Latin name of the River Severn, and the legend behind it is a drowning — a princess thrown into the river became its spirit.
4,911 in the 1950s
#736
Alberta Alberta means noble and bright, and a Canadian province carries it — Alberta was named for Queen Victoria's fourth daughter, whose full name was Louise Caroline Alberta.
4,908 in the 1950s
#737
Kristin Kristin is a girl's name meaning a follower of Christ, and it is the smaller of a pair — Kristen holds 222,720 recorded births to its 181,344, and both charted only ever in America.
4,877 in the 1950s
#738
Kathi
4,863 in the 1950s
#739
Carey
4,830 in the 1950s
#740
Jolene
4,820 in the 1950s
#741
Forrest Forrest is one of only two names in this group our data marks as rising, and it is on its second life — American births ran 490 in 2018 and 862 in 2025, having collapsed from a 1994 peak twenty years before.
4,798 in the 1950s
#742
Freda Freda means peace, and it is a fragment of several longer names — Winifred, Frederica and Alfreda all shorten to it, so which one a Freda descends from usually cannot be recovered.
4,776 in the 1950s
#743
Penelope Penelope is a girl's name of Greek origin, borne in Homer's Odyssey by the wife of Odysseus, who held off suitors for twenty years by weaving a shroud she unpicked each night.
4,758 in the 1950s
#744
Tonya Tonya is a short form of Antonia, and its meaning is unknown — the Roman family name Antonius has no established derivation, and the flower reading widely given for it is a Renaissance invention.
4,694 in the 1950s
#745
Glenna
4,684 in the 1950s
#746
Willis Willis means son of Will, and the Will behind it is William — a name so common in medieval England that its diminutives generated a whole family of surnames, of which this is one.
4,661 in the 1950s
#747
Jeanine Jeanine means God is gracious, and it is a French elaboration of Jeanne — which makes it a feminine of a feminine, three derivations away from the Hebrew name it carries.
4,633 in the 1950s
#748
Diann
4,627 in the 1950s
#749
Sonja Sonja means wisdom, and the great church of Constantinople carries the same word — Hagia Sophia was dedicated to Holy Wisdom as an aspect of God, not to any saint of that name.
4,619 in the 1950s
#750
Homer Homer means hostage, which makes it the third pledge name in this group alongside Gage and Giselle — and the ancient tradition that the poet was blind may have been read backward out of a dialect word rather than recorded from life.
4,617 in the 1950s
#751
Delia Delia means of Delos, and it is a title for Artemis rather than a name in itself — she was born on that island, so calling her Delia is like calling someone the Nazarene.
4,595 in the 1950s
#752
Erin Erin is a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "Ireland."
4,591 in the 1950s
#753
Lenora
4,588 in the 1950s
#754
Eunice Eunice means good victory, and she is named in the New Testament as Timothy's mother — one of very few women whose faith Paul credits by name, alongside her own mother Lois.
4,585 in the 1950s
#755
Jessica Jessica is a girl's name invented by Shakespeare for The Merchant of Venice in 1596.
4,559 in the 1950s
#756
Noel Noel means Christmas, and its American peak was 2014 — the most recent peak of any name in this group by a wide margin.
4,551 in the 1950s
#757
Stephan Stephan means a wreath, not a crown — stephanos was the woven victor's garland at the Greek games, which is why the first Christian martyr's name reads as a prize rather than a rank.
4,503 in the 1950s
#758
Hattie Hattie is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "home ruler."
4,466 in the 1950s
#759
Jeffry
4,461 in the 1950s
#760
Debby
4,460 in the 1950s
#761
Shelby Shelby is a girl's name from an English place name of Norse formation meaning a willow farm.
4,457 in the 1950s
#762
Rena
4,455 in the 1950s
#763
Christie Christie means a follower of the anointed one, and the anointing was a physical act — Christ translates the Hebrew mashiach, both describing oil poured over a king or priest at his installation.
4,452 in the 1950s
#764
Dallas Dallas is the only rising name in this group — it peaked in 2015 and is still climbing, at 238th in the United States.
4,438 in the 1950s
#765
Hal
4,423 in the 1950s
#766
Flora Flora is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "flower," the Roman goddess whose festival was among the least decorous in the calendar.
4,411 in the 1950s
#767
Clay Clay means the earth a potter works, and it carries a creation story in almost every tradition — Genesis forms Adam from the ground, and Mesopotamian and Egyptian accounts do the same with clay.
4,381 in the 1950s
#768
Lorrie
4,369 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.