1970s Baby Names

8,079 names were given to children in the United States between 1970 and 1979, 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

#792
Jamal
4,786 in the 1970s
#797
Brady Brady means descendant of Brádach, an Irish byname whose own meaning is not settled — spirited, large-chested and broad-eyed are all proposed, and none is established.
4,740 in the 1970s
#800
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.
4,714 in the 1970s
#812
Marcos Marcos means dedicated to Mars, and the god behind it was not only a war god — Mars presided over agriculture too, which is coherent once you notice that farming and fighting were the same men's seasonal work.
4,625 in the 1970s
#814
Sam Sam is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God has heard," a short form of Samuel.
4,585 in the 1970s
#815
Matt
4,569 in the 1970s
#819
Dion
4,478 in the 1970s
#824
Clyde Clyde took nothing from Bonnie and Clyde.
4,410 in the 1970s
#825
Bryce Bryce means speckled or freckled, from a Gaulish saint's name whose meaning is not certain.
4,384 in the 1970s
#827
Jan Jan is 66 percent female on record because two unrelated uses collide — it is the ordinary man's name for John across Dutch, Polish and Czech, and a woman's short form of Janet and Janice in English.
4,373 in the 1970s
#828
Quentin Quentin is a boy's name meaning fifth — a Roman birth-order name, given to a fifth child or one born in the fifth month.
4,366 in the 1970s
#831
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.
4,349 in the 1970s
#836
Ron
4,289 in the 1970s
#841
Cecil Cecil means blind, from a Roman family name, and the saint who made it famous is patron of music on the strength of one ambiguous line in her own account of her wedding day.
4,255 in the 1970s
#842
Max Max is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "greatest."
4,242 in the 1970s
#851
Chester Chester is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "fortress" or "walled camp."
4,150 in the 1970s
#854
Alfonso Alfonso completes a set on this site — Alphonse in French, Alonzo in Spanish and Italian, and Alfonso the Iberian dynastic form, all descending from one Visigothic compound.
4,141 in the 1970s
#858
Dylan Dylan is a boy's name of Welsh origin meaning "great tide" or "sea," from the elements dy and llanw.
4,112 in the 1970s
#861
Brock Brock means badger, and it is one of the oldest animal words in English — a Celtic borrowing that entered Old English before the Norman Conquest and survives in dialect to this day.
4,090 in the 1970s
#864
Rodolfo
4,069 in the 1970s
#865
Cornelius
4,046 in the 1970s
#869
Randolph Randolph means shield-wolf, and the shield in it is specifically the rim — the Germanic rand names the edge of the shield rather than the whole thing, which is the part that met an enemy's blade.
4,038 in the 1970s
#870
Salvatore Salvatore means savior, and it is a title rather than a description — Italian Catholic families gave it as a devotional name naming Christ's role directly, in the way Spanish families use Jesús.
4,036 in the 1970s
#871
Gerard Gerard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave with the spear.
4,031 in the 1970s
#872
Pablo Pablo is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "small" or "humble," the Spanish form of Paul.
4,020 in the 1970s
#873
Caleb Caleb is a boy's name of Hebrew origin whose root is debated.
4,012 in the 1970s
#875
Josh Josh is a boy's name, the short form of Joshua, from a Hebrew name meaning the Lord is salvation.
4,011 in the 1970s
#876
Kendrick Kendrick is a boy's name from a surname with several origins. It may come from the Welsh Cynwrig, the Old English Cyneric, "royal power," or the Scottish MacHenry.
3,995 in the 1970s
#881
Timmy
3,951 in the 1970s
#884
Harvey Harvey is a boy's name of Breton origin meaning "battle worthy."
3,920 in the 1970s
#886
Ty Ty has no source of its own — it shortens Tyler, Tyrone and Tyson, three names with nothing in common, so which one a given Ty belongs to cannot be read off the name.
3,902 in the 1970s
#888
Dexter Dexter is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "right-handed" or "skilful."
3,895 in the 1970s
#891
Nicolas Nicolas is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "victory of the people."
3,877 in the 1970s
#892
Malcolm Malcolm means devotee of Columba, and it is one of only two rising names in this group — 168th in Canada, 272nd in the United States, 362nd in Scotland, 539th in Ireland, 1,333rd in England and Wales and 1,629th in France, and climbing on record rather than falling.
3,876 in the 1970s
#897
Rusty
3,841 in the 1970s
#898
Levi Levi is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "joined" or "attached."
3,840 in the 1970s
#901
Julius Julius means downy-bearded, and the family claimed descent from Venus — the Julii traced themselves to Iulus, son of Aeneas, which is the genealogy Virgil wrote the Aeneid to dignify.
3,806 in the 1970s
#906
Bryon
3,772 in the 1970s
#907
Oliver Oliver is a boy's name that entered England with the Normans and has a disputed origin.
3,770 in the 1970s
#908
Donovan Donovan means dark brown, and the Irish surname behind it belonged to a king who backed the wrong side — the Uí Donnabháin lost their lands after opposing Brian Boru in the tenth century.
3,768 in the 1970s
#909
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.
3,740 in the 1970s
#913
Rocky Rocky is a boy's name that began as a nickname for Rocco and similar names, or for a tough person.
3,712 in the 1970s
#914
Arnold Arnold means eagle power, and England and Wales ranks it 631st on 59 births — well above the United States at 1,478th, which is not what the name's twentieth-century American associations would predict.
3,706 in the 1970s
#917
Myron Myron means myrrh, and the resin was worth its weight in gold — traded up the incense routes from southern Arabia, used for embalming, and one of the three gifts in Matthew.
3,690 in the 1970s
#918
Rolando
3,686 in the 1970s
#922
Everett Everett is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "brave as a wild boar," from eber, boar, and hard, brave or hardy.
3,659 in the 1970s
#923
Garry Garry means spear, and it reached English through a steel town — Gary, Indiana was named for a US Steel chairman, and the place name did more for the given name than any of its Germanic ancestors.
3,657 in the 1970s
#925
Eli Eli is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "ascent" or "my God," depending on which Hebrew name it represents.
3,652 in the 1970s

What Made a 1970s Name

Children in the United States were registered with it between 1970 and 1979. 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.