1960s Baby Names

5,710 names were given to children in the United States between 1960 and 1969, 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

#428
Herbert Herbert is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning bright army.
13,792 in the 1960s
#430
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.
13,690 in the 1960s
#431
Darrin
13,687 in the 1960s
#432
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.
13,636 in the 1960s
#435
Ted Ted is a boy's name that serves two unrelated names at once, and it exists because medieval English moved the n from "mine Edward."
13,565 in the 1960s
#436
Lloyd Lloyd is a boy's name from the Welsh word for gray, and the double L is a genuine Welsh consonant that English has no letter for.
13,494 in the 1960s
#439
Ricardo Ricardo is a boy's name meaning brave ruler, the Spanish and Portuguese form of Richard.
13,253 in the 1960s
#442
Ron
13,141 in the 1960s
#443
Dwight Dwight descends from Dionysus, the Greek god of wine — through the medieval woman's name Diot, a pet form of Dionysia, which is an unusually indirect route for a masculine surname.
13,097 in the 1960s
#450
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.
12,897 in the 1960s
#454
Travis Travis is a boy's name from an occupational surname meaning a toll collector, one who worked at a crossing.
12,763 in the 1960s
#456
Ruben Ruben is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "behold, a son."
12,707 in the 1960s
#460
Kenny Kenny sits on top of two different Gaelic names that English collapsed into one — Cináed, born of fire, and Coinneach, handsome.
12,464 in the 1960s
#463
Andy Andy means manly, and the Greek root is the ordinary word for a man — so Andrew is one of the few apostles carrying a Greek name rather than a Hebrew or Aramaic one.
12,271 in the 1960s
#465
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.
12,184 in the 1960s
#466
Alex Alex is a name of Greek origin meaning "defender of mankind."
12,165 in the 1960s
#467
Timmy
12,041 in the 1960s
#470
Kelvin Kelvin is the only name on this site that is also an SI unit, and the order runs river to man to measurement — a Glasgow river gave a physicist his title, and the title was given to the scale of absolute temperature.
11,952 in the 1960s
#473
Ken
11,913 in the 1960s
#474
Doug
11,897 in the 1960s
#477
Lewis Lewis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior," the English form of Louis.
11,768 in the 1960s
#483
Ryan Ryan is a boy's name of Irish origin, anglicized from Ó Riain.
11,400 in the 1960s
#486
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.
11,315 in the 1960s
#491
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.
11,148 in the 1960s
#495
Jesus Jesus is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "the Lord is salvation."
11,036 in the 1960s
#498
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.
10,988 in the 1960s
#500
Terrence Terrence descends from a Roman playwright who was born enslaved in North Africa — Terence was freed by his owner, wrote six comedies that survive complete, and shaped Latin prose style for centuries.
10,928 in the 1960s
#502
Christian Christian is a boy's name from the Latin christianus, meaning "a follower of Christ."
10,847 in the 1960s
#508
Corey Corey is a boy's name from an Irish surname, generally given as dweller near a hollow.
10,564 in the 1960s
#515
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.
10,320 in the 1960s
#516
Nathaniel Nathaniel is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "gift of God."
10,295 in the 1960s
#525
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."
9,953 in the 1960s
#527
Miguel Miguel is a boy's name meaning who is like God, the Spanish and Portuguese form of Michael.
9,865 in the 1960s
#528
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.
9,835 in the 1960s
#530
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.
9,813 in the 1960s
#532
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.
9,719 in the 1960s
#534
Roderick Roderick means famous ruler, and its most consequential bearer lost a country — Roderic was the last Visigothic king of Spain, defeated in 711 by the Arab and Berber force that then held most of the peninsula for centuries.
9,705 in the 1960s
#536
Hector Hector is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "holding fast," borne by the Trojan prince who is the most sympathetic figure in the Iliad.
9,664 in the 1960s
#539
Arnold Arnold means eagle power, and England and Wales ranks it 631st on 59 births — well above the United States at 1478th, which is not what the name's twentieth-century American associations would predict.
9,552 in the 1960s
#540
Leo Leo is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "lion."
9,539 in the 1960s
#541
Freddie Freddie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "peaceful ruler."
9,449 in the 1960s
#543
Neal Neal has no agreed meaning — champion, cloud and passionate are all proposed for the Irish Niall and none is established.
9,379 in the 1960s
#545
Gerard Gerard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave with the spear.
9,361 in the 1960s
#548
Clayton Clayton means the settlement on clay, from an English place name that describes the ground it stood on.
9,334 in the 1960s
#549
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.
9,253 in the 1960s
#551
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.
9,216 in the 1960s
#554
Clyde Clyde took nothing from Bonnie and Clyde.
9,136 in the 1960s
#555
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.
9,109 in the 1960s

What made a 1960s name

Nothing about the sound of it. A name is on this page because children in the United States were registered with it between 1960 and 1969, and its position is simply how many. Every list of "1960s 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.