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

#529
Geraldine Geraldine was invented in a 1537 love poem — the Earl of Surrey coined it for Lady Elizabeth FitzGerald, calling her the Fair Geraldine.
9,824 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 1,465th.
9,813 in the 1960s
#531
Gretchen Gretchen means little pearl, and German uses her name for a kind of question — a Gretchenfrage is the awkward essential one you cannot dodge, after the question she puts to Faust about religion.
9,745 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
#533
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.
9,709 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
#535
Annie Annie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "grace" or "favor."
9,689 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
#537
Debora
9,649 in the 1960s
#538
Nora Nora is a girl's name that developed as a short form of longer names, chiefly Honora and Eleanor, and is now used independently.
9,582 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 1,478th, 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
#542
Frankie Frankie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "free man" or "Frenchman."
9,438 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
#544
Molly Molly is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, a pet form of Mary whose meaning has never been settled — the candidates are "bitter" and "beloved."
9,364 in the 1960s
#545
Gerard Gerard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave with the spear.
9,361 in the 1960s
#546
Josephine Josephine is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he will add," the French feminine form of Joseph.
9,358 in the 1960s
#547
Billie Billie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "resolute protector."
9,343 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
#550
Maryann Maryann joins two names whose own meanings are unsettled — Mary has never been securely derived from the Hebrew, and Ann means grace, so only half of the compound has a firm reading.
9,238 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
#552
Joanna Joanna means God is gracious, and it charts in all seven markets — the United States 306th, Ireland 367th, Scotland 395th, Northern Ireland 432nd, England and Wales 514th and France 721st.
9,208 in the 1960s
#553
Dena
9,184 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
#556
Milton Milton means the mill settlement, and there is a second and quite separate source meaning the middle settlement — two entirely different Old English place names that ended up producing exactly the same modern spelling.
9,066 in the 1960s
#557
Edith Edith is a girl's name of Old English origin meaning "prosperous in war."
9,018 in the 1960s
#558
Pauline Pauline is a girl's name from the Latin for small or humble, the feminine of Paul.
8,958 in the 1960s
#559
Pat Pat is one of the most evenly divided names on this site — about 60 percent of recorded births are female, because it shortens both Patricia and Patrick and neither side ever won.
8,930 in the 1960s
#560
Mona Mona in Mona Lisa is not a name — it contracts ma donna, my lady, so the painting's title is closer to Madam Lisa than to anyone called Mona.
8,805 in the 1960s
#561
Karin
8,796 in the 1960s
#562
Sam Sam is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God has heard," a short form of Samuel.
8,788 in the 1960s
#563
Geoffrey Geoffrey means peace, and only half of it is settled — the second element is agreed, while the first is disputed between three unrelated Germanic words, so the name is half-translatable.
8,778 in the 1960s
#564
Hope Hope is a girl's name of Old English origin taken from the virtue, from hopian.
8,764 in the 1960s
#565
Rex Rex means king, and it is the plain Latin nominative — which makes it the pair to Regis, the genitive meaning of the king.
8,758 in the 1960s
#566
Lucy Lucy is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "light," from lux.
8,677 in the 1960s
#567
Francisco Francisco means Frenchman, and Saint Francis was given it as a nickname — his father traded in France and called him the little Frenchman.
8,673 in the 1960s
#568
Nelson Nelson means son of Neil, and the admiral made it a given name — it was a surname until Trafalgar, after which parents across the English-speaking world started using it as a first name outright.
8,607 in the 1960s
#569
Raul Raul means wolf counsel, and it is the same name as Ralph and Rudolph — one Norse compound that entered Spanish, English and German separately and ended up looking like three different names.
8,572 in the 1960s
#570
Betsy Betsy is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath."
8,563 in the 1960s
#571
Tiffany Tiffany is a medieval name meaning manifestation of God, given to girls born at Epiphany — a old name that now reads as thoroughly modern.
8,524 in the 1960s
#572
Delores Delores means sorrows, and it is a Marian title rather than a wish — Our Lady of Sorrows, named for the seven griefs of the Virgin, which is why a name meaning pain was ever given.
8,470 in the 1960s
#573
Herman Herman means army man, and the German national hero Hermann is a Latin scribe's version of a Cheruscan name we cannot now recover — Arminius, the chief who destroyed three Roman legions in AD 9.
8,432 in the 1960s
#574
Fredrick Fredrick is an American respelling that ranks higher in England and Wales than in the United States — 934th against 1,730th, which reverses the usual direction for a respelling.
8,431 in the 1960s
#575
Alisa
8,426 in the 1960s
#576
Bret
8,420 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.