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

#931
Gilberto
3,634 in the 1970s
#932
Sheldon
3,633 in the 1970s
#937
Otis Otis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "wealth" or "fortune."
3,589 in the 1970s
#938
Simon Simon is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he has heard," borne by the apostle Peter before his renaming.
3,586 in the 1970s
#943
Abel Abel is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "breath" or "vapour."
3,539 in the 1970s
#946
Alonzo Alonzo is the Spanish descendant of a Visigothic name, and it is rising — 511th in the United States, 1,186th in Canada, 1,324th in France and 1,714th in England and Wales, having peaked as recently as 2022, which is unusual for a name birth records carry from 1880.
3,522 in the 1970s
#955
Scot
3,450 in the 1970s
#957
Elijah Elijah is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "my God is Yahweh," from Eliyahu.
3,427 in the 1970s
#965
Roman Roman is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "citizen of Rome," from Romanus.
3,377 in the 1970s
#966
Jake Jake is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "supplanter," a short form of Jacob that became a name in its own right.
3,373 in the 1970s
#968
Rex Rex means king, and it is the plain Latin nominative — which makes it the pair to Regis, the genitive meaning of the king.
3,366 in the 1970s
#969
Randal
3,365 in the 1970s
#970
Guillermo
3,362 in the 1970s
#971
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.
3,352 in the 1970s
#977
Felipe
3,316 in the 1970s
#978
Sherman
3,302 in the 1970s
#979
Claude Claude is a name from a Roman family name meaning lame, one of very few widely used names with an unflattering literal sense.
3,301 in the 1970s
#983
Derick
3,267 in the 1970s
#985
Ismael Ismael is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God will hear," the son of Abraham and Hagar and a prophet in Islam.
3,263 in the 1970s
#986
Stephan Stephan means a wreath, not a crown — stephanos was the woven victor's garland at the Greek games, which is why the first Christian martyr's name reads as a prize rather than a rank.
3,255 in the 1970s
#991
Damion
3,196 in the 1970s
#993
Virgil Virgil is misspelled and always has been — the poet's name was Vergilius, and medieval scribes changed the e to an i by association with virgo, which is how a Roman family name acquired a meaning it never had.
3,190 in the 1970s
#994
Darius Darius means holding firm the good, and we know that because the king said so — the Behistun inscription has Darius the Great explain his own name and reign in three languages, carved on a cliff face.
3,178 in the 1970s
#995
Hugh Hugh is a boy's name from a Germanic word for mind or spirit, brought to Britain by the Normans.
3,177 in the 1970s
#996
Darrick
3,176 in the 1970s
#997
Beau Beau is a boy's name from the French beau, meaning handsome or beautiful.
3,157 in the 1970s
#1,000
Rogelio
3,128 in the 1970s
#1,006
Desmond Desmond means south Munster, and it is a territory rather than a person — Deas-Mhumhain named the earldom the Fitzgeralds held, and the name reaches modern use through the land.
3,099 in the 1970s
#1,010
Kareem
3,086 in the 1970s
#1,017
Colby Colby is a boy's name of Norse origin meaning "Koli's farm," from villages in the English Danelaw.
3,057 in the 1970s
#1,021
Owen Owen is a boy's name of Welsh origin, the anglicized form of Owain.
3,034 in the 1970s
#1,022
Gustavo Gustavo has no settled meaning, and the two accounts disagree on the language — a Norse staff of the Geats, or a Slavic name reshaped by Swedish, and neither has carried the field.
3,027 in the 1970s
#1,027
Earnest Earnest respells Ernest, and the Germanic behind it is not mild — eornost meant vigor in battle, seriousness of the deadly kind, long before it settled into the sense of being sincere.
2,994 in the 1970s
#1,029
Lyle Lyle is a boy's name from the Norman French for "the island," and the l at the front is the definite article rather than part of the word.
2,990 in the 1970s
#1,030
Xavier Xavier is a boy's name from a Basque place name meaning "the new house," from etxe berri.
2,988 in the 1970s
#1,031
Elias Elias is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "my God is Yahweh."
2,986 in the 1970s
#1,037
Dante Dante means enduring, and it is a nickname that outlived its full form — the poet was christened Durante, and almost nobody has used that name since, while the short version became international.
2,975 in the 1970s
#1,038
Bart
2,973 in the 1970s
#1,041
Curt
2,960 in the 1970s
#1,042
Forrest Forrest is one of only two names in this group birth records mark as rising, and it is on its second life — American births ran 490 in 2018 and 862 in 2025, having collapsed from a 1994 peak twenty years before.
2,953 in the 1970s
#1,052
Thaddeus
2,906 in the 1970s
#1,053
Dominick Dominick means of the Lord, and it was given to children born on a Sunday — dies dominica is the Lord's day, and the name records the day of birth rather than a hope for the child.
2,893 in the 1970s
#1,054
Stewart
2,892 in the 1970s
#1,056
Pete Pete means rock, and it began as a joke about a man's character — Jesus renames Simon as Cephas, the Aramaic for a stone, and the pun works in Greek but not in English.
2,885 in the 1970s
#1,058
Ramiro
2,874 in the 1970s
#1,059
Kristian
2,871 in the 1970s
#1,061
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.
2,865 in the 1970s
#1,064
Monte
2,862 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.