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

#913
Shauna
3,566 in the 1960s
#914
Lenora
3,560 in the 1960s
#915
Leland Leland means fallow land — ground deliberately left unplowed for a season.
3,550 in the 1960s
#916
Malinda
3,544 in the 1960s
#917
Daisy Daisy is a girl's name of English origin naming the flower, and its meaning is unusually literal: daisy comes from the Old English dægesege, "day's eye," because the flower opens its petals at dawn and closes them at dusk.
3,543 in the 1960s
#918
Lorena Lorena is a place before it is a person — Lorraine is the land of Lothar, a Frankish king whose kingdom was carved out of Charlemagne's empire and named after him directly.
3,539 in the 1960s
#919
Rudolph Rudolph means famous wolf, and the reindeer was invented to sell things — a Montgomery Ward copywriter wrote him for a giveaway booklet in 1939, which makes him a corporate creation rather than a folk one.
3,535 in the 1960s
#920
Dallas Dallas is the only rising name in this group — it peaked in 2015 and is still climbing, at 238th in the United States.
3,530 in the 1960s
#921
Johanna Johanna means God is gracious, and it heads one of the largest name families in Europe — Jane, Joan, Jean, Janet, Sinead and Siobhan are all the same name arriving by different national routes.
3,525 in the 1960s
#922
Marguerite Marguerite is a girl's name meaning pearl, and it is also the French word for the daisy — so the name carries a flower and a gemstone at once.
3,510 in the 1960s
#923
Gerry
3,508 in the 1960s
#924
Candice Candice is not a name but a title — Kandake was the word for the queen mother of Kush, and Acts records one without naming her, so a royal office became a personal name by misreading.
3,505 in the 1960s
#925
Jenifer
3,496 in the 1960s
#926
Luz
3,493 in the 1960s
#927
Dion
3,492 in the 1960s
#928
Zachary Zachary is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "the Lord has remembered."
3,488 in the 1960s
#929
Gay
3,482 in the 1960s
#930
Doyle
3,471 in the 1960s
#931
Shellie
3,467 in the 1960s
#932
Lionel Lionel means little lion, and it entered English through Arthurian romance — Sir Lionel is a knight of the Round Table, and the name was rare before the stories carried it.
3,466 in the 1960s
#933
Greta
3,462 in the 1960s
#934
Rickie
3,461 in the 1960s
#935
Lou Lou is a girl's name in France, a short form of Louise and Louis meaning "famous warrior."
3,450 in the 1960s
#936
Darwin
3,447 in the 1960s
#937
Brendan Brendan is not Irish in origin — it comes from a Welsh word meaning a prince, borrowed into Irish, and its saint is credited with a transatlantic voyage six centuries before Columbus.
3,442 in the 1960s
#938
Latonya
3,440 in the 1960s
#939
Tamela
3,436 in the 1960s
#940
Jami
3,433 in the 1960s
#941
Marisa Marisa is a blend rather than an inherited name — Italian joined Maria to Luisa, and the result reads as though it means sea, which it does not, since Maria's own meaning is unsettled.
3,432 in the 1960s
#942
Marta
3,417 in the 1960s
#943
Bryon
3,415 in the 1960s
#944
Felecia
3,412 in the 1960s
#945
Cora Cora is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "maiden," from kore.
3,402 in the 1960s
#946
Melisa
3,396 in the 1960s
#947
Liz
3,392 in the 1960s
#948
Verna Verna means springtime, from the Latin for spring — and it is reviving, though from a low base at 3,464th in the United States on a 1918 peak of 1,885.
3,384 in the 1960s
#949
Robby
3,381 in the 1960s
#950
Lowell Lowell means little wolf, and it is Norman French rather than English — louvel is a diminutive of loup, so the name is affectionate about an animal most cultures feared.
3,374 in the 1960s
#951
Sergio Sergio means servant, from a Roman family name that is probably Etruscan — and Virgil gave the Sergii a Trojan ancestor, which is the Aeneid doing genealogical work for Rome's aristocracy.
3,365 in the 1960s
#952
Geneva Geneva is not named after the Swiss city — it is a form of Genevieve, whose own meaning is unsettled, and the city's name comes from a Celtic word for a bend or estuary entirely separately.
3,361 in the 1960s
#953
Oliver Oliver is a boy's name that entered England with the Normans and has a disputed origin.
3,359 in the 1960s
#954
Tonja
3,357 in the 1960s
#955
Debby
3,354 in the 1960s
#956
Caryn
3,351 in the 1960s
#957
Lamont
3,351 in the 1960s
#958
Gayla
3,336 in the 1960s
#959
Eugenia
3,322 in the 1960s
#960
Kathi
3,319 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.