1970s Baby Names

14,967 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

#400
Yvette Yvette is a girl's name from a Germanic word for the yew tree, by way of Breton.
12,508 in the 1970s
#401
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.
12,505 in the 1970s
#404
Keri
12,428 in the 1970s
#405
Rosa Rosa is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "rose."
12,401 in the 1970s
#406
Melody Melody is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "song" or "singing," from melodia.
12,345 in the 1970s
#407
Caroline Caroline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man," the French feminine of Charles by way of the Latin Carolus.
12,321 in the 1970s
#411
Bethany Bethany is a village outside Jerusalem, and its meaning is contested — house of figs and house of the poor are both proposed.
12,210 in the 1970s
#413
Trina
12,145 in the 1970s
#416
Joyce Joyce is a girl's name that was a man's name for most of its history, from a Breton saint called Iodoc. It is stable, and its highest current rank is France at 334th — not any English-speaking market.
12,042 in the 1970s
#417
Joanne Joanne is a girl's name meaning God is gracious, one of the many feminines of John.
12,031 in the 1970s
#418
Leigh Leigh means a woodland clearing, and the same word is hiding at the end of dozens of modern names — the -leigh in Kayleigh and Ashlyn's cousins is this word, borrowed for its sound rather than its sense.
12,011 in the 1970s
#419
Tabitha Tabitha means gazelle, and it is Aramaic rather than Hebrew — one of a small set of New Testament names from the everyday language of first-century Judaea.
12,006 in the 1970s
#420
Vicki Vicki means victory, shortened from Victoria — and Victoria was a rare name in Britain before the queen, not a traditional one she happened to carry.
11,956 in the 1970s
#422
Tamika
11,951 in the 1970s
#425
Gretchen Gretchen means little pearl, and German uses her name for a kind of question — a Gretchenfrage is the awkward essential one you cannot dodge, after the question she puts to Faust about religion.
11,822 in the 1970s
#426
Ginger Ginger reached English from Sanskrit by way of four languages — shringavera, horn-root, named for the rhizome's antler shape, and every step of that journey is documented.
11,809 in the 1970s
#427
Betty Betty is a girl's name that began as a short form of Elizabeth and is now used in its own right.
11,770 in the 1970s
#429
Dorothy Dorothy is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "gift of God."
11,688 in the 1970s
#431
Debbie Debbie is a girl's name meaning bee, a pet form of Deborah.
11,572 in the 1970s
#432
Helen Helen is a girl's name from Greek whose meaning is not settled, though torch and shining are the usual readings.
11,541 in the 1970s
#434
Darlene Darlene is a girl's name built from the English word darling, and it is one of a small group of American twentieth-century coinages that used the -ene ending.
11,532 in the 1970s
#435
Bobbie Bobbie is 83 percent female on record and England and Wales ranks it 523rd on 110 births — far above the United States at 2,072nd, reversing what an American nickname-name would usually do.
11,527 in the 1970s
#436
Latoya Latoya is an American invention with no source language, and its 1984 peak of 5,069 births is the largest single-year figure in this group — the victory gloss offered for it is attached to a coinage.
11,517 in the 1970s
#437
Frances Frances is a girl's name meaning a Frank, or a free one, and the feminine of Francis.
11,511 in the 1970s
#439
Rose Rose is a girl's name of Latin origin naming the flower, from rosa.
11,453 in the 1970s
#440
Ellen Ellen is a girl's name of Greek origin, a medieval English form of Helen whose meaning has never been settled.
11,442 in the 1970s
#441
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.
11,415 in the 1970s
#442
Ana Ana is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "favor" or "grace," and it is the form of Anna used across Spanish, Portuguese and Slavic Europe.
11,326 in the 1970s
#445
Alice Alice is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "noble," arrived at by a long contraction of Adelaide.
11,184 in the 1970s
#446
Billie Billie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "resolute protector."
11,179 in the 1970s
#447
Nikki Nikki means victory of the people, and both halves of the Greek are collective — nike is the victory and laos is the citizen body, so it describes a public triumph rather than a personal one.
11,095 in the 1970s
#448
Hope Hope is a girl's name of Old English origin taken from the virtue, from hopian.
11,073 in the 1970s
#449
Tasha
11,016 in the 1970s
#451
Latonya
10,955 in the 1970s
#452
Latasha
10,917 in the 1970s
#459
Maureen Maureen is the Irish Máirín, a diminutive of Máire, which is itself the Irish form of Mary.
10,698 in the 1970s
#462
Shirley Shirley is a girl's name from an English place name meaning bright clearing, and it was a boys' name until Charlotte Brontë used it for a heroine in 1849.
10,623 in the 1970s
#463
Rita Rita is a girl's name meaning pearl, clipped from the end of Margarita rather than the front.
10,590 in the 1970s
#466
Peggy Peggy is a girl's name meaning pearl, a pet form of Margaret by way of Meg.
10,547 in the 1970s
#467
Audrey Audrey is a girl's name of Old English origin meaning "noble strength," from Æthelthryth.
10,534 in the 1970s
#469
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.
10,456 in the 1970s
#470
Cara Cara is a girl's name with two independent sources: the Italian cara, meaning "dear" or "beloved," and the Irish cara, meaning "friend."
10,430 in the 1970s
#471
Christa
10,409 in the 1970s
#474
Norma Norma is a girl's name that appears to have been invented for an opera — Bellini's Norma of 1831 — and it was the birth name of Marilyn Monroe, who appears elsewhere in these pages under the name that replaced it.
10,380 in the 1970s
#476
Shana
10,282 in the 1970s
#478
Juanita Juanita is a girl's name meaning God is gracious, the Spanish diminutive of Juana.
10,237 in the 1970s
#479
Leticia Leticia means joy, and Napoleon's mother carried it — Letizia Ramolino outlived her son and was styled Madame Mère de l'Empereur, a title created for her alone.
10,231 in the 1970s
#482
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.
10,140 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.