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

76 names, most popular first in the United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

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 #292 in US
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 #302 in US
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 #339 in US
Angela Angela is a girl's name from the Greek for messenger, the word that also gives us angel.
Girl Greek #408 in US
Michelle Michelle is a girl's name, the French feminine of Michel, from a Hebrew question meaning who is like God.
Girl French #465 in US
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 #501 in US
Troy Troy is a boy's name with two independent sources — an Irish surname meaning foot soldier, and the ancient city.
Boy Irish #533 in US
Scott Scott is a boy's name meaning a Scot, from the surname given to people from Scotland.
Boy Scottish #534 in US
Jennifer Jennifer is a girl's name, the Cornish form of the Welsh Gwenhwyfar, the name of King Arthur's queen.
Girl Cornish #586 in US
Jaime Jaime is 41 percent female on record, one of the most divided names on this site — Spanish reads it as James, and English hears it as a spelling of Jamie.
Unisex Spanish #657 in US
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 #681 in US
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 #705 in US
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 #803 in US
Lance Lance does not mean a spear.
Boy French #862 in US
Dana Dana is a name with several unrelated sources — a Danish origin, a Hebrew feminine of Daniel, and an Irish mother goddess.
Unisex English #1,028 in US
Rhiannon Rhiannon is a Welsh girl's name meaning "great queen," from the Celtic Rigantona.
Girl Welsh #1,119 in US
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 #1,188 in US
Heather Heather is a girl's name taken directly from the flowering shrub that covers Scottish and northern English moorland.
Girl English #1,264 in US
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 #1,304 in US
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 #1,391 in US
Jermaine Jermaine means brother, and it is French rather than Germanic — germain is the ordinary word for a full brother, and it has nothing to do with Germany despite appearances.
Boy French #1,494 in US
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 #1,510 in US
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 #1,511 in US
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 #1,586 in US
Stacy Stacy comes from Eustace or Anastasia, two unrelated names, and its meanings are correspondingly different — fruitful or resurrection.
Unisex Greek #1,664 in US
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 #1,700 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
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 #1,817 in US
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 #1,943 in US
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 #1,984 in US
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 #2,143 in US
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 #2,193 in US
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 #2,404 in US
Carrie Carrie is a girl's name, a pet form of Caroline meaning free man through Charles.
Girl English #2,731 in US
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 #3,061 in US
Stacey Stacey is the e-spelling of Stacy, from Eustace or Anastasia.
Girl Greek #3,088 in US
Kristine Kristine means a follower of Christ, and it is the fourth spelling of this name to appear in this group — after Kristin, Kristen and Kristina, all four of them American-led rather than Scandinavian.
Girl Scandinavian #3,241 in US
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.
Girl English #3,325 in US
Trisha Trisha is the fourth spelling of Patricia on this site, and England now ranks it above America — 1,123rd in England and Wales against 3,484th in the United States, having set its English peak this year.
Girl English #3,484 in US
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 #3,510 in US
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 #3,623 in US
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 #3,778 in US
Jodi Jodi serves Judith, Joseph and Jude at once, which is why the wider Jody family never settled on one sex — three unrelated Hebrew parents pulling in different directions.
Girl American #4,057 in US
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 #4,136 in US
Christy Christy serves both Christine and Christopher, so it is used for both sexes — 98 percent of recorded births are female, but the masculine use remains ordinary in Ireland.
Girl English #4,234 in US
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.
Girl German #4,322 in US
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.
Unisex English #4,462 in US
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 #4,488 in US

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