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

#625
Jeannie
7,367 in the 1960s
#626
Myra Myra was invented by a poet — Fulke Greville coined it around 1580, probably by rearranging Mary, and every later meaning attached to it was supplied after the fact.
7,364 in the 1960s
#627
Jorge Jorge is the Spanish and Portuguese form of George, meaning farmer.
7,184 in the 1960s
#628
Desiree Desiree means desired, and it began as a Puritan virtue name rather than a French one — Desiderius was a late Roman Christian name for a longed-for child, and French inherited it before English did.
7,167 in the 1960s
#629
Patsy Patsy serves both Patricia and Patrick, and it is 94 percent female on record — the male use survives mainly in Ireland, where Patsy is still an ordinary man's name rather than a woman's name at all.
7,152 in the 1960s
#630
Pedro Pedro means stone, and the name records a nickname Jesus gave — Simon was renamed Cephas in Aramaic, which Greek translated as Petros, so the pun on rock survives through three languages.
7,113 in the 1960s
#631
Christie Christie means a follower of the anointed one, and the anointing was a physical act — Christ translates the Hebrew mashiach, both describing oil poured over a king or priest at his installation.
7,107 in the 1960s
#632
Irma Irma means whole or complete, and it is the surviving fragment of much longer Germanic names — Irmgard and Irmintrud both begin with it, and only the first element outlasted them.
7,101 in the 1960s
#633
Krista Krista means a follower of Christ, and it is the sixth spelling of this name family to appear in this group — after Kristin, Kristen, Kristina, Kristine and Kristi.
7,076 in the 1960s
#634
Kara Kara means beloved, from the Italian and Latin for dear — and a separate Norse Kara exists as the name of a valkyrie, so the same spelling covers two entirely unrelated names.
7,070 in the 1960s
#635
Leanne Leanne is a British and Irish name far more than an American one — England peaked at 616 births, Scotland 287 and Ireland 201, against an American high of 801 in a vastly larger population.
7,066 in the 1960s
#636
Carlton Carlton means the settlement of the free peasants, and the word for those peasants became an insult — ceorl gave English churl and churlish, so the name preserves a class that the language later turned against.
7,044 in the 1960s
#637
Emma Emma is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "whole" or "universal," from the element ermen, found in older names such as Ermintrude.
7,011 in the 1960s
#638
Faith Faith is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "trust" or "belief," one of the virtue names the Puritans put into use in the sixteenth century.
7,005 in the 1960s
#639
Stacie Stacie means resurrection, and it is a boys' name by origin — Anastasius was masculine, and the modern name descends from it through Eustace and Anastasia alike.
7,001 in the 1960s
#640
Celeste Celeste is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "heavenly."
6,977 in the 1960s
#641
Daphne Daphne is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "laurel tree."
6,940 in the 1960s
#642
Cedric Cedric was invented by Walter Scott in Ivanhoe in 1819, and it appears to be a misspelling — he took the Anglo-Saxon Cerdic and transposed the letters.
6,899 in the 1960s
#643
Marian Marian is a girl's name that either joins Mary and Ann or diminutives Mary alone — the sources disagree.
6,842 in the 1960s
#644
Chester Chester is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "fortress" or "walled camp."
6,807 in the 1960s
#645
Grant Grant means tall or large, from a Norman French nickname — and it has nothing to do with granting or giving, which is a different word that arrived in English by a separate route.
6,805 in the 1960s
#646
Hugh Hugh is a boy's name from a Germanic word for mind or spirit, brought to Britain by the Normans.
6,792 in the 1960s
#647
Deana
6,792 in the 1960s
#648
Jeanine Jeanine means God is gracious, and it is a French elaboration of Jeanne — which makes it a feminine of a feminine, three derivations away from the Hebrew name it carries.
6,782 in the 1960s
#649
Angelo Angelo means messenger, and it charts in all seven markets within a 365-place spread — the United States 304th, France 343rd, Northern Ireland 397th, Scotland 522nd, England and Wales 569th and Ireland 669th.
6,773 in the 1960s
#650
Justin Justin is a boy's name from the Latin for just or righteous.
6,744 in the 1960s
#651
Tonia
6,741 in the 1960s
#652
Sammy Sammy means God has heard, or possibly name of God — the Hebrew admits both readings, and the Bible's own explanation of Samuel uses a pun on asking that fits neither.
6,730 in the 1960s
#653
Lucinda Lucinda was invented by Cervantes — the name appears in Don Quixote in 1605 and has no record before it, which makes it one of the few names on this site with a datable author.
6,697 in the 1960s
#654
Kirsten Kirsten means a follower of the anointed one, and the anointing is literal — Christ translates the Hebrew mashiach, and both words describe someone smeared with oil at a coronation rather than a divine title.
6,686 in the 1960s
#655
Guadalupe Guadalupe is half Arabic and half Latin — wadi, a valley or river, joined to a word for a wolf.
6,639 in the 1960s
#656
Bonita
6,593 in the 1960s
#657
Edgar Edgar is a boy's name meaning wealthy spear, and it is one of very few Old English names still in wide use.
6,531 in the 1960s
#658
Clara Clara is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "bright" or "clear," from clarus.
6,515 in the 1960s
#659
Tammi
6,514 in the 1960s
#660
Cory Cory has at least three unrelated origins — a Norse island name, an Irish surname and a Greek word for a maiden — and English cannot distinguish them.
6,513 in the 1960s
#661
Claude Claude is a name from a Roman family name meaning lame, one of very few widely used names with an unflattering literal sense.
6,507 in the 1960s
#662
Shaun Shaun spells the Irish Seán phonetically for English readers, and it is the same name as John — the Irish took it from Norman French Jehan rather than directly from Latin, which is why it sounds nothing like John.
6,505 in the 1960s
#663
Alma Alma is a girl's name with several competing origins: "nourishing" in Latin, "soul" in Spanish, and "young woman" in Hebrew.
6,481 in the 1960s
#664
Laurel Laurel names the plant directly, which sets it apart from Lora and Loren on this site — those reach the laurel through a Roman town, while this one is simply the tree.
6,469 in the 1960s
#665
Beatrice Beatrice is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "she who brings happiness."
6,467 in the 1960s
#666
Javier Javier means the new house, and it is Basque rather than Spanish — Saint Francis Xavier was named for his family's castle at Xabier, so the name is a place that became a surname and then a first name.
6,453 in the 1960s
#667
Rudy Rudy is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous wolf."
6,428 in the 1960s
#668
Ivan Ivan is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is gracious."
6,399 in the 1960s
#669
Armando Armando means army man, and it is the same name as Herman — one Germanic compound that reached Spanish through the Visigoths and English through the Normans, ending up unrecognisably different.
6,350 in the 1960s
#670
Erica Erica is a girl's name with two independent sources: the feminine of Eric, meaning eternal ruler, and the botanical Latin name of heather.
6,339 in the 1960s
#671
Rafael Rafael is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God heals."
6,336 in the 1960s
#672
Lesa
6,322 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.