Vintage Names

Names that were everywhere a century ago and then were not. The reliable pattern is the hundred-year rule: a name usually has to feel like a great-grandparent rather than a grandparent before it can come back, because the generation in between still hears it as merely old.

Rankings for

342 names, rare — 25 to 99 a year, in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Desire Peaked in 2008 · 24,603 births since 1915
Unisex 95 in 2025
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.
Boy English 63 in 2025
Jacquelyn Jacquelyn means supplanter, and the chain is long — it is an American respelling of Jacqueline, the French feminine of Jacques, which is James, which is Jacob.
Girl American 80 in 2025
Kurt Kurt means bold counsel, shortened from Konrad — and the courteous reading commonly given is a false friend, coming from an unrelated French word that only sounds similar.
Boy German 62 in 2025
Léonie Léonie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "lioness," the French feminine of Leon.
Girl French 80 in 2025
Polly Polly is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, a pet form of Mary whose meaning has never been settled.
Girl Hebrew 79 in 2025
Jennie Jennie began as a Scottish pet form of Jean and only later attached to Jennifer, which is a Cornish name with no connection to it.
Girl Scottish 79 in 2025
Elton Peaked in 1920 · 22,240 births since 1880
Boy 60 in 2025
Eldon Peaked in 1926 · 26,570 births since 1881
Boy 60 in 2025
Thérèse Thérèse is a girl's name of genuinely uncertain meaning, the French form of Teresa.
Girl French 79 in 2025
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 78 in 2025
Debora Peaked in 1957 · 32,460 births since 1915
Girl 78 in 2025
Rosella Peaked in 1924 · 16,516 births since 1880
Girl 78 in 2025
Eunice Eunice means good victory, and she is named in the New Testament as Timothy's mother — one of very few women whose faith Paul credits by name, alongside her own mother Lois.
Girl Greek 77 in 2025
Yan Peaked in 1972 · 7,957 births since 1912
Boy 58 in 2025
Mervin Peaked in 1920 · 12,611 births since 1880
Boy 58 in 2025
Rusty Peaked in 1961 · 18,415 births since 1927
Boy 58 in 2025
Clint Peaked in 1980 · 33,268 births since 1880
Boy 58 in 2025
Pete Pete means rock, and it began as a joke about a man's character — Jesus renames Simon as Cephas, the Aramaic for a stone, and the pun works in Greek but not in English.
Boy English 58 in 2025
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 58 in 2025
Solenne Peaked in 1982 · 5,413 births since 1957
Girl 76 in 2025
Lela Lela means night on the Arabic reading, and that connects it to one of the oldest love stories in the world — Layla and Majnun, retold in Persian verse eight centuries ago.
Girl Arabic 76 in 2025
Dora Dora means gift, and it is the end of several names rather than a name in its own right — Theodora, Isidora and Dorothea all supply it, and Dorothy means the same thing with the halves reversed.
Girl Greek 75 in 2025
Rena Peaked in 1916 · 39,860 births since 1880
Girl 75 in 2025
Suzanne Suzanne is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "lily," from shoshannah.
Girl French 75 in 2025
Erwin Peaked in 1922 · 24,357 births since 1880
Boy 57 in 2025
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 75 in 2025
Jeanette Jeanette means God is gracious, a French double diminutive of Jeanne.
Girl French 75 in 2025
Terra Peaked in 1980 · 15,790 births since 1940
Girl Latin 74 in 2025
Darnell Peaked in 1984 · 32,211 births since 1912
Boy 56 in 2025
Geraldine Geraldine was invented in a 1537 love poem — the Earl of Surrey coined it for Lady Elizabeth FitzGerald, calling her the Fair Geraldine.
Girl Germanic 73 in 2025
Mable Mable means lovable, and the name lost its front end — it began as Amabel, and English wore the initial A away entirely, which is the same process that turned an ewt into a newt.
Girl English 73 in 2025
Aziza Peaked in 1986 · 4,531 births since 1948
Girl Arabic 73 in 2025
Kerry Kerry is 53 percent female in our records — the fourth-closest to an even split on this site, behind only Emerson, Riley and Jackie.
Unisex Irish 77 in 2025
Edna Edna is a girl's name from a Hebrew word meaning delight, and it shares its root with Eden.
Girl Hebrew 72 in 2025
Dave Dave ranks 2217th in England and Wales and 2469th in the United States, so the short form outranks its American peak market in a country that never recorded more than fifteen in a year.
Boy Hebrew 55 in 2025
Samia Peaked in 1979 · 20,191 births since 1949
Girl Arabic 72 in 2025
Dewayne Peaked in 1963 · 26,605 births since 1912
Boy African American English 55 in 2025
Kenya Peaked in 1973 · 28,593 births since 1952
Girl 71 in 2025
Marguerite Marguerite is a girl's name meaning pearl, and it is also the French word for the daisy — so the name carries a flower and a gemstone at once.
Girl French 71 in 2025
Janice Janice is a girl's name usually credited to a 1899 novel, though our records carry it from 1894 — five years before the book.
Girl English 70 in 2025
Imogene Peaked in 1927 · 28,049 births since 1880
Girl 70 in 2025
Willis Willis means son of Will, and the Will behind it is William — a name so common in medieval England that its diminutives generated a whole family of surnames, of which this is one.
Boy English 52 in 2025
Primrose Primrose is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "first rose."
Girl Latin 69 in 2025
Kirk Kirk means church, and it is Norse rather than English — the Vikings brought the word to northern England and Scotland, which is why Scots say kirk where English says church.
Boy Scottish 52 in 2025
Dolores Dolores is a girl's name meaning sorrows — taken from a title of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, which counts seven specific griefs.
Girl Spanish 68 in 2025
Dianna Dianna means the shining one, and the root is the same one behind Zeus and Jupiter — an Indo-European word for the bright daytime sky that also gives us the ordinary word day.
Girl Latin 68 in 2025
Jacklyn Peaked in 1987 · 17,528 births since 1913
Girl 68 in 2025

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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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