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 1465th.
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 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
#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 we track — 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 the births in our records 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 actually 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 genuinely 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 1730th, 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

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.