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

#673
Deirdre
6,321 in the 1960s
#674
Gabriel Gabriel is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my strength," from Gavri'el.
6,299 in the 1960s
#675
Elisa Elisa means my God is an oath, shortened from Elizabeth, and France ranks it 202nd — its strongest market, ahead of England and Wales at 377th, Ireland at 382nd and the United States at 458th.
6,211 in the 1960s
#676
Darcy Darcy is a name of Norman French origin meaning "from Arcy," a place in Normandy.
6,199 in the 1960s
#677
Bernice Bernice is a girl's name meaning bringer of victory, and it is the same name as Veronica — both descend from the Greek Berenike by different routes.
6,171 in the 1960s
#678
Naomi Naomi is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "pleasantness," from No'omi.
6,166 in the 1960s
#679
Susanne
6,166 in the 1960s
#680
Suzette
6,160 in the 1960s
#681
Clark Clark means a clergyman, and the job drifted — a clericus was in holy orders, but since the clergy were the ones who could write, the word slid across to mean anyone who kept records, which is what a clerk still is.
6,159 in the 1960s
#682
Fernando Fernando means bold journey, and it is Germanic rather than Spanish — the Visigoths brought it to Iberia, where it became the royal name of Castile and Aragon and then traveled to the Americas.
6,149 in the 1960s
#683
Bart
6,131 in the 1960s
#684
Everett Everett is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "brave as a wild boar," from eber, boar, and hard, brave or hardy.
6,121 in the 1960s
#685
Leann
6,057 in the 1960s
#686
Vera Vera is a girl's name with two origins that both work. In Russian it means "faith"; in Latin vera means "true" — and unusually for such a pair, the two senses reinforce rather than contradict each other.
6,037 in the 1960s
#687
Orlando Orlando is Roland with its consonants swapped — Italian moved the r, and the hero of the Song of Roland became the hero of Orlando Furioso, the same man under a rearranged name.
6,020 in the 1960s
#688
Gwen
5,995 in the 1960s
#689
Marcella Marcella means dedicated to Mars, and it is reviving — 948th in the United States, 1,386th in England and Wales, 1,507th in Canada and 6,569th in France, from a peak more than a century old.
5,995 in the 1960s
#690
Jennie Jennie began as a Scottish pet form of Jean and only later attached to Jennifer, which is a Cornish name with no connection to it.
5,994 in the 1960s
#691
Lorenzo Lorenzo is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "from Laurentum," the Italian and Spanish form of Laurence.
5,989 in the 1960s
#692
Wallace Wallace means foreigner, and the irony is complete — it is the Anglo-Saxon word for the Britons who were there first, so Scotland's national hero carries a name meaning outsider in his own country.
5,986 in the 1960s
#693
Lesley Lesley is the Scottish spelling and Scotland proves it — a peak of 341 births there in 1974, far above what the country's size would predict against an American high of 981.
5,985 in the 1960s
#694
Curt
5,981 in the 1960s
#695
Claire Claire is a girl's name of French origin meaning "clear" or "bright," from the Latin clarus.
5,973 in the 1960s
#696
Gladys Gladys is a girl's name from Welsh, usually taken as a form of Claudia — which would give it the meaning lame.
5,954 in the 1960s
#697
Noel Noel means Christmas, and its American peak was 2014 — the most recent peak of any name in this group by a wide margin.
5,952 in the 1960s
#698
Jeri
5,940 in the 1960s
#699
Eleanor Eleanor is a girl's name that traces back to Eleanor of Aquitaine, the twelfth-century queen of France and later England, whose own name, Aliénor, is widely explained as "the other Aenor," distinguishing her from her mother, also named Aenor.
5,938 in the 1960s
#700
Thelma Thelma is a girl's name invented for a novel in 1887, and the Greek word it was probably built from means "will" or "volition."
5,923 in the 1960s
#701
Trudy
5,923 in the 1960s
#702
Megan Megan is a girl's name, the Welsh pet form of Margaret, from a Greek word for pearl that reached Europe from Persian.
5,921 in the 1960s
#703
Dewayne
5,903 in the 1960s
#704
Jayne
5,877 in the 1960s
#705
Mickey
5,868 in the 1960s
#706
Iris Iris is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "rainbow."
5,861 in the 1960s
#707
Bertha Bertha is a girl's name from a Germanic word meaning bright, and it was Charlemagne's mother's name.
5,859 in the 1960s
#708
Paige Paige is a girl's name from a medieval job title meaning a young male servant, and it reached women by way of a surname.
5,825 in the 1960s
#709
Bradford
5,805 in the 1960s
#710
Felix Felix is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "lucky" or "fortunate."
5,797 in the 1960s
#711
Cara Cara is a girl's name with two independent sources: the Italian cara, meaning "dear" or "beloved," and the Irish cara, meaning "friend."
5,779 in the 1960s
#712
Clay Clay means the earth a potter works, and it carries a creation story in almost every tradition — Genesis forms Adam from the ground, and Mesopotamian and Egyptian accounts do the same with clay.
5,729 in the 1960s
#713
Benny Benny means son of the right hand, and Jacob overruled the name at the deathbed — Rachel called the child son of my sorrow as she died, and his father renamed him on the spot.
5,724 in the 1960s
#714
Marcy
5,709 in the 1960s
#715
Casey Casey is a name of Irish origin meaning "vigilant" or "watchful."
5,682 in the 1960s
#716
Kristie
5,681 in the 1960s
#717
Nanette
5,670 in the 1960s
#718
Ida Ida is a girl's name from a Germanic word for work or labor, and it charts in all seven markets.
5,629 in the 1960s
#719
Shawna Shawna means God is gracious, and it reaches English from Hebrew through four languages — Yochanan to Greek to Latin to Irish Seán, respelled Shawn and then given an American feminine ending.
5,566 in the 1960s
#720
Lauri
5,561 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.