1970s Baby Names

25,022 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

#433
Earl Earl is a boy's name taken from the English noble title, and it is the only rank in the British peerage with a native English name rather than a French one.
11,533 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
#438
Greg Greg means watchful, and the Greek is a command rather than a description — gregorein means stay awake, which early Christians took as an instruction about the second coming.
11,477 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
#443
Francis Francis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "Frenchman" or "free man."
11,290 in the 1970s
#444
Daryl Daryl completes a set of three — Darrell, Darryl and Daryl are one Norman place name split across three spellings, and all three appear in this group, carrying about 328,000 births between them.
11,270 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
#450
Rene Rene is a name from the Latin for reborn, given at baptism to mark spiritual rebirth.
10,959 in the 1970s
#451
Latonya
10,955 in the 1970s
#452
Latasha
10,917 in the 1970s
#453
Heath
10,907 in the 1970s
#454
Mathew Mathew drops a t from Matthew, and the doubled t was never in the Hebrew — it entered through the Greek and Latin spellings, so the shorter form is arguably closer to the original.
10,905 in the 1970s
#455
Karl Karl means free man, and it is the original German spelling behind Charles — the word named a free peasant, so it began at the bottom of the free classes and rose to name emperors.
10,872 in the 1970s
#456
Toby Toby is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is good."
10,850 in the 1970s
#457
Clayton Clayton means the settlement on clay, from an English place name that describes the ground it stood on.
10,809 in the 1970s
#458
Clarence Clarence is a boy's name taken from an English dukedom, itself named for a Suffolk town.
10,792 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
#460
Alfred Alfred is a boy's name of Old English origin meaning "elf counsel."
10,646 in the 1970s
#461
Raul Raul means wolf counsel, and it is the same name as Ralph and Rudolph — one Norse compound that entered Spanish, English and German separately and ended up looking like three different names.
10,632 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
#464
Isaac Isaac is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he laughs," from Yitzhak.
10,568 in the 1970s
#465
Javier Javier means the new house, and it is Basque rather than Spanish — Saint Francis Xavier was named for his family's castle at Xabier, so the name is a place that became a surname and then a first name.
10,556 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
#468
Wade Wade means a river crossing, and there is a second Wade entirely — a Germanic sea giant from Old English legend whose story Chaucer refers to as though everyone knew it, and which is now lost.
10,482 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
#472
Ramon Ramon means protecting counsel, and both halves are Germanic — the Visigoths brought it to Iberia, so a name that reads as thoroughly Spanish is Gothic underneath, like Fernando and Alonzo.
10,391 in the 1970s
#473
Mike Mike is a boy's name, the short form of Michael, from a Hebrew question meaning who is like God.
10,391 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
#475
Luke Luke is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "man from Lucania," a region of southern Italy.
10,329 in the 1970s
#476
Shana
10,282 in the 1970s
#477
Ray Ray is a boy's name that serves as a short form of Raymond and as the English word for a beam of light.
10,277 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
#480
Cody Cody is a boy's name of Irish origin, anglicising Ó Cuidighthigh, meaning "descendant of the helpful one."
10,208 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.