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

#337
Gilbert Gilbert is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning bright pledge, and it founded the only medieval religious order native to England.
18,931 in the 1950s
#338
Garry Garry means spear, and it reached English through a steel town — Gary, Indiana was named for a US Steel chairman, and the place name did more for the given name than any of its Germanic ancestors.
18,868 in the 1950s
#339
Holly Holly is a girl's name of Old English origin taken from the tree, from holegn.
18,811 in the 1950s
#340
Karl Karl means free man, and it is the original German spelling behind Charles — the word named a free peasant, so it began at the bottom of the free classes and rose to name emperors.
18,798 in the 1950s
#341
Monica Monica is a girl's name whose meaning is genuinely unknown, and whose saint — the mother of Augustine — came from Roman North Africa, so the name may be Berber rather than Latin or Greek at all.
18,736 in the 1950s
#342
Kent Kent is the oldest recorded place name in England — Cantium appears in Greek writing before the Roman invasion, and its meaning was already uncertain to the Romans who wrote it down.
18,730 in the 1950s
#343
Janis Janis fell further than any name in this sweep — 3,217 American births in 1947 down to 10 in the most recent year we hold, which is a fall of more than 99 percent.
18,720 in the 1950s
#344
Kurt Kurt means bold counsel, shortened from Konrad — and the courteous reading commonly given is a false friend, coming from an unrelated French word that only sounds similar.
18,656 in the 1950s
#345
Todd Todd is a boy's name from a northern English dialect word for a fox, given as a nickname to someone crafty or red-haired.
18,618 in the 1950s
#346
Shelley Shelley means a clearing on a ledge, and it has nothing to do with shells — the poet's surname records a patch of high ground in Suffolk or Sussex, not anything from a beach.
18,534 in the 1950s
#347
Marianne Marianne is the personification of the French Republic, and her bust stands in every town hall in France — so the name carries a civic weight in one market that it has nowhere else.
18,498 in the 1950s
#348
Dolores Dolores is a girl's name meaning sorrows — taken from a title of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, which counts seven specific griefs.
18,431 in the 1950s
#349
Greg Greg means watchful, and the Greek is a command rather than a description — gregorein means stay awake, which early Christians took as an instruction about the second coming.
18,245 in the 1950s
#350
Lewis Lewis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior," the English form of Louis.
18,214 in the 1950s
#351
Wesley Wesley is a boy's name of English origin meaning "western meadow," from the Old English west and leah.
18,207 in the 1950s
#352
Tracy Tracy is a Norman place name that became a surname, then a boys' name, then overwhelmingly a girls' name — about 81 percent of the births in our records are female.
18,137 in the 1950s
#353
Donnie Donnie ranks 563rd in Ireland and 1804th in the United States, so the country with a fraction of the births ranks it three times higher — a pattern we see when a name goes home.
18,131 in the 1950s
#354
Clyde Clyde took nothing from Bonnie and Clyde.
18,045 in the 1950s
#355
Floyd Floyd is the same name as Lloyd, and the F is a mistake that stuck — English had no way to say the Welsh double L, so it substituted the closest sound it had, and the substitution became a separate name.
17,975 in the 1950s
#356
Jessie Jessie is a name that arrives from two unrelated directions — the Scottish pet form of Janet, and a feminine of the Hebrew Jesse.
17,818 in the 1950s
#357
Neil Neil means champion or cloud, from Irish, and it traveled to Iceland with the Vikings and back to England with the Normans — so the English Neil arrived by way of Scandinavia and France.
17,773 in the 1950s
#358
Allan Allan has no settled meaning at all — handsome, little rock and a deer are all proposed for the Breton original, and the name reached England through Brittany rather than through Ireland or Scotland at all.
17,734 in the 1950s
#359
Veronica Veronica is a girl's name from a Latin phrase meaning true image, and the saint behind it was invented to explain a relic — the cloth came first, and the woman was named after it.
17,649 in the 1950s
#360
Jimmie Jimmie means supplanter, shortened from James, and about 17 percent of the births in our records are female — a much higher share than most nickname-names of this shape, which usually resolve firmly to one side or the other.
17,629 in the 1950s
#361
Mildred Mildred is a girl's name from Old English elements meaning gentle strength, and it is among the least fashionable names of the twentieth century — yet our data marks it reviving, ninety years after its 1920 peak.
17,623 in the 1950s
#362
Perry Perry means at the pear tree, from an English place name — and our data marks it reviving, at 1373rd in the United States and 1681st in England and Wales.
17,364 in the 1950s
#363
Eva Eva is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "life" or "living."
17,166 in the 1950s
#364
Franklin Franklin means a freeholder — a man who owned his land but held no noble rank, a specific medieval class.
17,091 in the 1950s
#365
Rachel Rachel is a girl's name from Hebrew meaning ewe, borne by Jacob's wife in Genesis.
16,849 in the 1950s
#366
Shelia Shelia is Cecilia with two letters swapped and four languages in between — Cecilia became the Irish Síle, Síle was written Sheila in English, and Sheila was misspelled into Shelia often enough to become its own name.
16,791 in the 1950s
#367
Lester Lester means from Leicester, and the spelling is the honest one — Leicester has been pronounced LES-ter for centuries, so the surname simply wrote down what people had actually been saying to each other all along.
16,715 in the 1950s
#368
Jody Jody serves Judith, Joseph and Jude at once, which is why it is 64 percent female rather than resolving to one side — three unrelated parents pulling in different directions.
16,680 in the 1950s
#369
Roxanne Roxanne means dawn or bright, and it is Persian rather than Greek — Alexander married Roxana in Bactria, and she and their son were murdered after his death.
16,618 in the 1950s
#370
Lillian Lillian is a girl's name usually explained as an elaboration of Lily, from the Latin lilium, and sometimes as a variant of Elizabeth by way of the medieval pet form Lilian.
16,560 in the 1950s
#371
Carole Carole is a girl's name meaning free man, the French spelling of Carol.
16,535 in the 1950s
#372
Manuel Manuel is a boy's name meaning God is with us, the Spanish short form of Emmanuel.
16,474 in the 1950s
#373
Brad Brad means broad clearing, shortened from Bradley — and the broad element is the same word as the modern English broad, one of the few Old English place-name terms still transparent.
16,466 in the 1950s
#374
Josephine Josephine is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he will add," the French feminine form of Joseph.
16,462 in the 1950s
#375
Carrie Carrie is a girl's name, a pet form of Caroline meaning free man through Charles.
16,254 in the 1950s
#376
Kirk Kirk means church, and it is Norse rather than English — the Vikings brought the word to northern England and Scotland, which is why Scots say kirk where English says church.
16,252 in the 1950s
#377
Patty Patty belonged to Martha before it belonged to Patricia — the pet form was reassigned in the twentieth century, one of several nicknames in English that quietly changed parents.
16,133 in the 1950s
#378
Doreen Doreen has two possible parents and neither is settled — an Irish Doireann whose own meaning is disputed, or Dora with an Irish diminutive attached, which would make it a nineteenth-century construction.
16,105 in the 1950s
#379
Sherri Sherri looks French and is not — it respells Cherie, meaning darling, but Cherie is not a traditional French given name at all, so the name is an English invention wearing French clothes.
16,104 in the 1950s
#380
Charlie Charlie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "free man."
16,055 in the 1950s
#381
Carlos Carlos is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man."
15,996 in the 1950s
#382
Grace Grace is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "favor" or "blessing," from gratia.
15,982 in the 1950s
#383
Daryl Daryl completes a set of three — Darrell, Darryl and Daryl are one Norman place name split across three spellings, and all three appear in our gap band, carrying about 328,000 births between them.
15,823 in the 1950s
#384
Freddie Freddie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "peaceful ruler."
15,812 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.