Classic Names

Names that have never really left. They rise and fall within a band rather than disappearing, which makes them the safest choice on the site and the hardest to say anything surprising about.

Rankings for

530 names, most popular first in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Constance Constance is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "steadfastness," one of the abstract virtue names the early Church favored.
Girl French #1,508 in US
Theresa Theresa is a girl's name of uncertain meaning, the German and English spelling of Teresa.
Girl German #1,548 in US
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.
Boy German #1,599 in US
Cristina Cristina shares its root with Kirsten in this same group, but arrived by a southern route — Italian and Spanish rather than Scandinavian, from the Greek word for a follower of the anointed one.
Girl Italian #1,624 in US
Nell Nell is a girl's name that reached its modern form through a medieval habit of mishearing, from "mine Ellen" run together.
Girl English #1,628 in US
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.
Girl Spanish #1,703 in US
Antoine Antoine is a boy's name from the Roman family name Antonius, the French form of Anthony.
Boy French #1,716 in US
Denis Denis is a boy's name from the Greek god of wine, and Ireland places it 240th — its strongest market by a wide margin.
Boy French #1,719 in US
Gerard Gerard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave with the spear.
Boy Germanic #1,722 in US
Fredrick Fredrick is an American respelling that ranks higher in England and Wales than in the United States — 934th against 1730th, which reverses the usual direction for a respelling.
Boy English #1,730 in US
Roderick Roderick means famous ruler, and its most consequential bearer lost a country — Roderic was the last Visigothic king of Spain, defeated in 711 by the Arab and Berber force that then held most of the peninsula for centuries.
Boy German #1,745 in US
Lucinda Lucinda was invented by Cervantes — the name appears in Don Quixote in 1605 and has no record before it, which makes it one of the few names on this site with a datable author.
Girl Spanish #1,747 in US
Laurence Laurence is the one name on this site that changes sex at the Channel: it is a man's name in English and a woman's name in French.
Unisex Latin #1,750 in US
Morris Morris means dark-skinned, from the Latin for a Moor — and the morris dance carries the same word, having been thought to imitate Moorish dancing when it reached England.
Boy English #1,762 in US
Marianne Marianne is the personification of the French Republic, and her bust stands in every town hall in France — so the name carries a civic weight in one market that it has nowhere else.
Girl French #1,827 in US
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.
Boy German #1,848 in US
Margarita Margarita means pearl, and it names both a cocktail and a pizza — the pizza for Queen Margherita of Italy, the drink by a route nobody has ever settled.
Girl Spanish #1,893 in US
Clifton Clifton means the settlement by the cliff, and it is the same first element as Clifford — one describes a ford below the cliff and the other the farm on top of it.
Boy English #1,916 in US
Alexandre Alexandre is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "defender of mankind," the French form of Alexander.
Boy French #2,148 in US
Tom Tom is a boy's name of Aramaic origin meaning "twin," a short form of Thomas used as a full name across Europe.
Boy Aramaic #2,186 in US
Clément Clément is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "merciful" or "gentle," borne by fourteen popes and by one of the earliest Christian writers outside the New Testament.
Boy French #2,273 in US
Caitlin Caitlin is a girl's name of Greek origin, the Irish form of Katherine, and its English mispronunciation generated a whole family of new names.
Girl Irish #2,332 in US
Herman Herman means army man, and the German national hero Hermann is a Latin scribe's version of a Cheruscan name we cannot now recover — Arminius, the chief who destroyed three Roman legions in AD 9.
Boy Germanic #2,374 in US
Lino Lino is a boy's name of Greek origin from Linus, a figure Greek myth killed off twice in different stories.
Boy Italian #2,412 in US
Sébastien Sébastien is a boy's name meaning from Sebaste, a city whose own name means venerable — it renders the imperial title Augustus into Greek.
Boy French #2,455 in US
Stuart Stuart means steward, and the office was literally the sty warden — keeper of the pigs — which rose to run the royal household and then supplied the name of a dynasty.
Boy Scottish #2,535 in US
Olivier Olivier is a boy's name usually taken as olive tree, though the character who made it famous — Roland's companion in the Song of Roland — may carry a Norse name meaning elf army instead.
Boy French #2,539 in US
Marius Marius is a boy's name of Latin origin, a Roman family name usually connected to Mars, the god of war.
Boy French #2,546 in US
Diane Diane is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "divine" or "heavenly," the French form of the Roman goddess Diana.
Girl French #2,637 in US
Herbert Herbert is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning bright army.
Boy Germanic #2,661 in US
Jan Jan is 66 percent female in our records 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.
Unisex Dutch #2,737 in US
Roberta Roberta is a girl's name meaning bright fame, the feminine of Robert.
Girl Germanic #2,813 in US
Frédéric Frédéric is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning peaceful ruler, the French form of Frederick.
Boy French #2,973 in US
Antoinette Antoinette means little Antoine, and the meaning usually given for the parent name — flower — is a false etymology.
Girl French #2,998 in US
Hilda Hilda means battle, and it is the surviving fragment of longer Germanic names — Hildegard, Brunhild and Matilda all contain it, and the element outlived most of the compounds it belonged to.
Girl Germanic #3,025 in US
Cyril Cyril means lord, and the man who carried it invented an alphabet — Cyrillic is named for the ninth-century missionary, though the script we call by his name was largely devised by his followers rather than by him.
Boy Greek #3,164 in US
Olga Olga is a Norse name in Russian dress — Helga traveled east with the Varangians and became Olga, so the patron saint of Kyiv and Moscow carries a Scandinavian word meaning holy.
Girl Russian #3,174 in US
Ted Ted is a boy's name that serves two unrelated names at once, and it exists because medieval English moved the n from "mine Edward."
Boy English #3,192 in US
Noémie Noémie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "pleasantness," borne by a woman in the Book of Ruth who asks to be called the opposite.
Girl French #3,307 in US
Hubert Hubert means bright mind, and its saint is the patron of hunters — Saint Hubertus, whose stag with a crucifix between its antlers is the emblem on every bottle of Jägermeister.
Boy Germanic #3,392 in US
Gaston Gaston is a boy's name most likely meaning "from Gascony," and a Disney villain has made it difficult in English while France is reviving it.
Boy French #3,397 in US
Aline Aline means noble, worn down from Adelaide through Adeline — three names that are the same word at three stages of erosion, and France ranks it 292nd on 185 births.
Girl French #3,460 in US
Luc Luc means from Lucania, an Italian region — so the name is a place rather than the light it is usually said to mean, and the light reading comes from confusion with a separate Latin word.
Boy French #3,497 in US
Hélène Hélène is a girl's name, the French form of Helen, whose Greek meaning was never established.
Girl French #3,585 in US
Pascal Pascal is a boy's name meaning of Easter, given to children born at Passover or Easter — and the word behind it is Hebrew, not Latin.
Boy French #3,586 in US
Geoffrey Geoffrey means peace, and only half of it is settled — the second element is agreed, while the first is disputed between three unrelated Germanic words, so the name is half-translatable.
Boy French #3,611 in US
Timothée Timothée is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "honoring God," the French form of Timothy.
Boy French #3,768 in US
Wilfred Wilfred is a boy's name of Old English origin meaning "desiring peace."
Boy English #3,805 in US

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A style is our reading of a name. A decade is the register — the names children were actually given, in order, with the counts.

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