Seventies Names

The names of the 1970s. Close enough that most people naming babies now grew up surrounded by them, which is exactly why they read as dated rather than as anything else — the hundred-year rule has another fifty years to run on these.

Rankings for

74 names, most popular first in Canada

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Arnaud Arnaud means eagle-power, built from two Germanic words, and it is the French form of the name English knows as Arnold.
Boy French #113
Michelle Michelle is a girl's name, the French feminine of Michel, from a Hebrew question meaning who is like God.
Girl French #272
Jeremy Jeremy is a boy's name, the medieval English form of Jeremiah, from a Hebrew name generally read as God will exalt.
Boy Hebrew #316
Ludovic Ludovic means famous in battle, and it is the same name as Louis and Ludwig — eighteen French kings and the composer all carry one Germanic compound in different national dress.
Boy French #395
Brian Brian is a boy's name of Irish origin whose meaning is unsettled — noble and high are both proposed, and neither is secure.
Boy Irish #434
Angela Angela is a girl's name from the Greek for messenger, the word that also gives us angel.
Girl Greek #440
Delphine Delphine means of Delphi, and the dolphin reading is not a coincidence — the Greeks connected the oracle site and the animal through a word for a womb, so both descend from the same root.
Girl French #465
Damon Damon means one who tames, and the story attached to it is about friendship — Damon and Pythias each offered to die in the other's place, which persuaded a tyrant to release them both.
Boy Greek #521
Janelle Janelle is an American elaboration rather than an inherited name — Jane with a French-looking ending attached, built in the twentieth century by the same habit that produced Danielle, Rochelle and Michelle.
Girl American #545
Shawn Shawn is a boy's name, the phonetic American respelling of the Irish Seán, which is itself the Irish form of John.
Boy Irish #597
Dana Dana is a name with several unrelated sources — a Danish origin, a Hebrew feminine of Daniel, and an Irish mother goddess.
Unisex English #700
Scott Scott is a boy's name meaning a Scot, from the surname given to people from Scotland.
Boy Scottish #704
Jennifer Jennifer is a girl's name, the Cornish form of the Welsh Gwenhwyfar, the name of King Arthur's queen.
Girl Cornish #744
Troy Troy is a boy's name with two independent sources — an Irish surname meaning foot soldier, and the ancient city.
Boy Irish #796
Aimee Aimee means beloved, and it is grammatically passive — the French past participle of aimer, to love, so the name says she who is loved rather than she who loves.
Girl French #833
Kimberly Kimberly is a girl's name that reached America by way of a South African diamond town, which was itself named after a British colonial secretary.
Girl English #842
Jenny Jenny began as a pet form of Jane, not Jennifer — the two attached to each other only in the twentieth century, and Jennifer was almost unknown outside Cornwall before 1900.
Girl English #933
Trisha Trisha is the fourth spelling of Patricia on this site, and England now ranks it above America — 1123rd in England and Wales against 3484th in the United States, having set its English peak this year.
Girl English #1,006
Tamara Tamara means date palm, and the tree mattered more than the fruit — in the ancient Near East a date palm was a standing symbol of uprightness and fertility.
Girl Russian #1,049
Chad Chad is a boy's name from a seventh-century English saint, and it has since become an American internet stereotype and, separately, the name of a country and a disputed ballot.
Boy English #1,080
Sonia Sonia is not a name in its own right in Russian — it is the everyday pet form of Sofia, and it means wisdom.
Girl Russian #1,213
Lance Lance does not mean a spear.
Boy French #1,303
Brent Brent means burned land, from ground cleared by fire — a place name recording a specific agricultural practice rather than a hill or a holy site, which are the two readings usually offered for it.
Boy English #1,632
Stacy Stacy comes from Eustace or Anastasia, two unrelated names, and its meanings are correspondingly different — fruitful or resurrection.
Unisex Greek #1,696
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.
Girl English #1,700
Heather Heather is a girl's name taken directly from the flowering shrub that covers Scottish and northern English moorland.
Girl English #1,756
Jaime Jaime is 41 percent female in our records, one of the most genuinely divided names on this site — Spanish reads it as James, and English hears it as a spelling of Jamie.
Unisex Spanish #1,756
Stacey Stacey is the e-spelling of Stacy, from Eustace or Anastasia.
Girl Greek #1,774
Shaun Shaun spells the Irish Seán phonetically for English readers, and it is the same name as John — the Irish took it from Norman French Jehan rather than directly from Latin, which is why it sounds nothing like John.
Boy Irish #1,856
Mindy Mindy has no source of its own — it shortens Melinda, whose second half is transparent and whose first half nobody has explained, so the name inherits half a meaning.
Girl English #2,069
Dawn Dawn is a girl's name taken directly from the English word for daybreak, and it is the English counterpart of Aurora rather than a translation of it.
Girl English #2,097
Yannick Yannick is Breton, meaning God is gracious, and the -ick ending is a Breton diminutive rather than a French one — so the name reads as little John in a Brittonic language, not a Romance one.
Boy Breton #2,164
Melinda Melinda is an invented name rather than an inherited one — an eighteenth-century literary coinage joining the Greek word for honey to the ending of Belinda and Lucinda.
Girl English #2,185
Sandrine Sandrine is a girl's name meaning defender of men, a French diminutive of Sandra.
Girl French #2,208
Yann Yann is the Breton John, and Brittany is the reason it exists — Britons fleeing the Anglo-Saxons carried a Brittonic language to Armorica, so Yann is closer kin to Welsh Ioan than to French Jean.
Boy Breton #2,212
Tanya Tanya is a Russian pet form of Tatiana, whose meaning is not known — the Roman family name behind it may be Sabine rather than Latin, and the Sabine language is barely attested at all.
Girl Russian #2,255
Rochelle Rochelle means little rock, and it is a place rather than a person — La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast was a Huguenot stronghold, and the name reached English through the town rather than any saint.
Girl French #2,315
Sabine Sabine names a people rather than a quality — the Sabines were an Italic tribe Rome absorbed early, and the abduction of their women is one of Rome's founding stories.
Girl French #2,350
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 #2,422
Mandy Mandy means she who must be loved, and the grammar matters — Amanda is a Latin gerundive, a form expressing obligation, so the name is closer to an instruction than a description.
Girl English #2,563
Jody Jody serves Judith, Joseph and Jude at once, which is why it is 64 percent female rather than resolving to one side — three unrelated parents pulling in different directions.
Unisex English #2,902
Angie Angie means messenger, and the Greek root behind it named someone carrying news — the wings and choirs of later Christianity all grew from an ordinary occupational word.
Girl English #2,981
Misty Misty is a word name with no older root — it is the English weather word used directly, appearing in American records only from the 1940s and peaking within a single generation.
Girl English #3,322
Kristopher Kristopher means Christ-bearer, and the legend built the meaning backward — a giant who carried a child across a river turned out to be carrying Christ, which is the story explaining the name.
Boy English #3,377
Tyrone Tyrone means Eoghan's land, an Irish county, and it reached American use almost entirely through one actor — Tyrone Power, whose grandfather took the name from the county his family came from.
Boy Irish #3,639
Carrie Carrie is a girl's name, a pet form of Caroline meaning free man through Charles.
Girl English 271,681 births
Virginie Virginie does not mean maiden.
Girl French 173,498 births
Christelle Christelle is a French girl's name meaning a follower of Christ.
Girl French 157,432 births

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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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