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 in our records and England and Wales ranks it 523rd on 110 births — far above the United States at 2072nd, 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 our gap band, 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

Nothing about the sound of it. A name is on this page because children in the United States were registered with it between 1970 and 1979, and its position is simply how many. Every list of "1970s names" you will find elsewhere is somebody's sense of the period; this one is the register.

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.