1960s Baby Names

18,229 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

#481
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.
11,473 in the 1960s
#482
Donnie Donnie ranks 563rd in Ireland and 1,804th 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.
11,430 in the 1960s
#483
Ryan Ryan is a boy's name of Irish origin, anglicized from Ó Riain.
11,400 in the 1960s
#484
Tracie
11,385 in the 1960s
#485
June June is a girl's name of Latin origin taken from the month, which is named for the goddess Juno — the queen of the Roman gods and the protector of marriage and childbirth.
11,357 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
#487
Kris
11,310 in the 1960s
#488
Arlene Arlene has no established origin at all — it appears in the nineteenth century with no traceable parent name, and the Irish pledge reading usually given for it belongs to a different name entirely.
11,259 in the 1960s
#489
Grace Grace is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "favor" or "blessing," from gratia.
11,237 in the 1960s
#490
Jimmie Jimmie means supplanter, shortened from James, and about 17 percent of recorded births are female — a much higher share than most nickname-names of this shape, which usually resolve firmly to one side or the other.
11,167 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
#492
Jacquelyn Jacquelyn means supplanter, and the chain is long — it is an American respelling of Jacqueline, the French feminine of Jacques, which is James, which is Jacob.
11,147 in the 1960s
#493
Kari Kari descends from the same unexplained Greek root as Kaitlin in this group, but by a Scandinavian route — through Karen and Katarina rather than through Irish, and the pure gloss is equally unproven on both paths.
11,056 in the 1960s
#494
Samantha Samantha is a girl's name of uncertain origin, first recorded in America in the eighteenth century.
11,051 in the 1960s
#495
Jesus Jesus is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "the Lord is salvation."
11,036 in the 1960s
#496
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.
11,011 in the 1960s
#497
Louise Louise is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior," the French feminine form of Louis.
11,006 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
#499
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.
10,976 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
#501
Nina Nina is a girl's name with several unrelated origins.
10,924 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
#503
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.
10,754 in the 1960s
#504
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.
10,663 in the 1960s
#505
Lorie
10,656 in the 1960s
#506
Marla
10,632 in the 1960s
#507
Carole Carole is a girl's name meaning free man, the French spelling of Carol.
10,573 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
#509
Marion Marion is a French diminutive of Mary that has crossed sexes twice over — it is 81 percent female on record, yet its most famous bearer was John Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison.
10,555 in the 1960s
#510
Marjorie Marjorie is a girl's name meaning pearl, an English form of Margaret whose modern spelling was pulled toward the herb marjoram by nothing more than a coincidence of sound.
10,521 in the 1960s
#511
Bobbie Bobbie is 83 percent female on record and England and Wales ranks it 523rd on 110 births — far above the United States at 2,072nd, reversing what an American nickname-name would usually do.
10,454 in the 1960s
#512
Gayle Gayle carries 67,694 lifetime births and now charts in no market — one of the largest names on this site to have fallen entirely out of current use.
10,404 in the 1960s
#513
Charlie Charlie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "free man."
10,387 in the 1960s
#514
Priscilla Priscilla means ancient or venerable, and it is a diminutive — so the name literally reads as little old one, which was a mark of respect rather than an insult.
10,361 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
#517
Ruby Ruby is a girl's name of Latin origin naming the red gemstone, from ruber, meaning red.
10,277 in the 1960s
#518
Dina Dina is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "judged" or "vindicated," borne by Jacob's daughter in one of the harshest stories in Genesis.
10,246 in the 1960s
#519
Trina
10,202 in the 1960s
#520
Robbie Robbie is a unisex name of Germanic origin meaning "bright fame," a diminutive of Robert.
10,142 in the 1960s
#521
Esther Esther is a girl's name usually connected to the Persian word for star, and possibly to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar.
10,139 in the 1960s
#522
Claudia Claudia means lame, and it comes from one of Rome's most powerful families.
10,043 in the 1960s
#523
Rochelle Rochelle means little rock, and it is a place rather than a person — La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast was a Huguenot stronghold, and the name reached English through the town rather than any saint.
9,970 in the 1960s
#524
Antoinette Antoinette means little Antoine, and the meaning usually given for the parent name — flower — is a false etymology.
9,958 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
#526
Candace Candace is a job title mistaken for a name — Kandake was the word for the queen mother of Kush, and Acts uses it as though it were personal, so a Sudanese royal office became an American given name.
9,886 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 been saying to each other all along.
9,835 in the 1960s

What Made a 1960s Name

Children in the United States were registered with it between 1960 and 1969. 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.