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

#337
Jo Jo is a name serving as the short form of Joanne, Josephine and Joan for women and Joseph for men.
20,403 in the 1960s
#338
Lance Lance does not mean a spear.
20,102 in the 1960s
#339
Natalie Natalie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "birthday of the Lord," from natalis.
19,605 in the 1960s
#340
Tammie
19,408 in the 1960s
#341
Clifford Clifford is a boy's name from an English place name meaning a ford by a cliff — a river crossing below a steep bank.
19,394 in the 1960s
#342
Kent Kent is the oldest recorded place name in England — Cantium appears in Greek writing before the Roman invasion, and its meaning was already uncertain to the Romans who wrote it down.
19,333 in the 1960s
#343
Derek Derek is a boy's name from the Germanic Theodoric, meaning ruler of the people — and it is the same name as Terry and Thierry, three forms of one original that no longer resemble each other.
19,089 in the 1960s
#344
Wesley Wesley is a boy's name of English origin meaning "western meadow," from the Old English west and leah.
18,957 in the 1960s
#345
Antonio Antonio is a boy's name of Etruscan origin whose meaning is unknown.
18,818 in the 1960s
#346
Alfred Alfred is a boy's name of Old English origin meaning "elf counsel."
18,792 in the 1960s
#347
Traci Traci is the most narrowly recorded name in this sweep — every one of its 52,406 births is American, it charts in no market in the current year, and its entire history runs from 1945 to a 1970 peak and down.
18,756 in the 1960s
#348
Gwendolyn Gwendolyn means white ring or blessed ring, from Welsh, and the second element is a ring — a torc or armlet, which was the standard Celtic mark of rank.
18,692 in the 1960s
#349
Nicole Nicole is a girl's name, the French feminine of Nicholas, meaning victory of the people.
18,643 in the 1960s
#350
Warren Warren is a boy's name from a Norman place name, and it is the second-strongest revival on record — it peaked in 1921 and now ranks 240th in the United States on 1,493 births, a century later.
18,643 in the 1960s
#351
Felicia Felicia means lucky, and the Latin felix meant fertile before it meant fortunate — the word originally described soil and livestock that produced well, and good fortune was a later extension of it.
18,596 in the 1960s
#352
Andre Andre is a boy's name, the French form of Andrew, from the Greek for manly.
18,584 in the 1960s
#353
Melody Melody is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "song" or "singing," from melodia.
18,517 in the 1960s
#354
Shelia Shelia is Cecilia with two letters swapped and four languages in between — Cecilia became the Irish Síle, Síle was written Sheila in English, and Sheila was misspelled into Shelia often enough to become its own name.
18,504 in the 1960s
#355
Marcia Marcia means dedicated to Mars, and that god's name is also where the month of March comes from — the Roman year began in March, because that was when the campaigning season opened up again after the winter.
18,472 in the 1960s
#356
Tami
18,462 in the 1960s
#357
Doris Doris is a girl's name from Greek mythology, where she is a sea nymph and the mother of the fifty Nereids.
18,314 in the 1960s
#358
Kristen Kristen is a girl's name meaning a follower of Christ, and in Denmark it is a man's name — the Danish Kristen is masculine and Kirsten the feminine.
18,268 in the 1960s
#359
Audrey Audrey is a girl's name of Old English origin meaning "noble strength," from Æthelthryth.
18,062 in the 1960s
#360
Karla Karla means free man, and the Germanic word named a free peasant — so a name that now reads as aristocratic began at the bottom of the free classes and rose to name emperors.
17,756 in the 1960s
#361
Kyle Kyle is a boy's name of Scottish Gaelic origin meaning "narrow strait," taken from a district of Ayrshire.
17,730 in the 1960s
#362
Clarence Clarence is a boy's name taken from an English dukedom, itself named for a Suffolk town.
17,662 in the 1960s
#363
Glenda Glenda is a twentieth-century Welsh invention rather than a traditional name — it joins two ordinary Welsh adjectives, and it does not appear in the historical record before about 1900.
17,644 in the 1960s
#364
Bernard Bernard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave as a bear.
17,598 in the 1960s
#365
Patty Patty belonged to Martha before it belonged to Patricia — the pet form was reassigned in the twentieth century, one of several nicknames in English that quietly changed parents.
17,548 in the 1960s
#366
Amanda Amanda is a girl's name from the Latin for she who must be loved, and one of the few names on this site that can be dated to a specific literary invention — Colley Cibber used it for a character in his 1696 play Love's Last Shift.
17,227 in the 1960s
#367
Pam
17,126 in the 1960s
#368
Juanita Juanita is a girl's name meaning God is gracious, the Spanish diminutive of Juana.
17,054 in the 1960s
#369
Lynne Lynne now ranks 2,155th in France and 14,047th in the United States, so a name that peaked in America at 2,471 births ranks far higher in a country that barely used it.
16,992 in the 1960s
#370
Dianne Dianne means divine, from the Roman goddess of the hunt — and Diana was originally a woodland deity of the Latin countryside, identified with the Greek Artemis only later and never completely.
16,957 in the 1960s
#371
Allison Allison is a girl's name of Norman French origin, from Alis — the medieval form of Alice — plus a diminutive ending.
16,928 in the 1960s
#372
Kelli Kelli respells Kelly, an Irish surname whose meaning is contested — bright-headed and strife are both proposed for Ó Ceallaigh, and neither has ever been established.
16,919 in the 1960s
#373
Kristi Kristi is the fifth spelling of this name to appear in this group — after Kristin, Kristen, Kristina and Kristine, all of them American-led despite the form being Scandinavian.
16,918 in the 1960s
#374
Cassandra Cassandra is a girl's name from Greek myth, borne by a prophet cursed to see the future and never be believed.
16,826 in the 1960s
#375
Teri Teri descends from a name with no agreed meaning — Theresa has been traced to a Greek island, to a word for summer and to one for hunting, and none of the three has carried the field.
16,822 in the 1960s
#376
Caroline Caroline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man," the French feminine of Charles by way of the Latin Carolus.
16,791 in the 1960s
#377
Marsha Marsha is a phonetic respelling of Marcia, and the name underneath is dedicated to Mars — the same god who gives his name to March, when the Roman year and the campaigning season both began.
16,699 in the 1960s
#378
Tyrone Tyrone means Eoghan's land, an Irish county, and it reached American use almost entirely through one actor — Tyrone Power, whose grandfather took the name from the county his family came from.
16,615 in the 1960s
#379
Erin Erin is a girl's name of Irish origin meaning "Ireland."
16,518 in the 1960s
#380
Darla Darla is a girl's name coined in twentieth-century America from the word darling.
16,356 in the 1960s
#381
Ronda
16,354 in the 1960s
#382
Kimberley Kimberley is named for a woman — the English place name behind it is Cyneburg's clearing, and Cyneburg was a seventh-century Mercian princess, so the name reaches modern use through her land rather than a man's.
16,344 in the 1960s
#383
Manuel Manuel is a boy's name meaning God is with us, the Spanish short form of Emmanuel.
16,164 in the 1960s
#384
Kelley Kelley is the same Irish name as Kellie, spelled differently, and the two split its births between them — this one peaked in 1968 and that one in 1969, a year apart at nearly the same size.
16,117 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.