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 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.
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 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.
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 in our records, 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 in our records and England and Wales ranks it 523rd on 110 births — far above the United States at 2072nd, 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 none of our six markets — 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 actually been saying to each other all along.
9,835 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.