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

191 names, uncommon — 100 to 499 a year, in the United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Sidney Sidney is a name of Old English origin meaning "wide meadow."
Unisex English 251 in 2025
Gilbert Gilbert is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning bright pledge, and it founded the only medieval religious order native to England.
Boy Germanic 145 in 2025
Farrah Farrah is a girl's name of Arabic origin meaning "joy," and its recorded peak is 1977 — the year after one poster sold twelve million copies.
Girl Arabic 168 in 2025
Janie Janie means God is gracious, shortened from Jane — and Jane is the English feminine of John, which makes it part of the largest name family in Europe by a considerable margin.
Girl English 168 in 2025
Clifford Clifford is a boy's name from an English place name meaning a ford by a cliff — a river crossing below a steep bank.
Boy English 139 in 2025
Georgie Georgie is a unisex name of Greek origin meaning "farmer," a diminutive of George and Georgia alike.
Unisex English 178 in 2025
Lindsey Lindsey is a girl's name from a district of Lincolnshire, and it originally meant an island — Lindsey was cut off by marsh and river, so the wetland reading and the island reading describe the same place.
Girl English 161 in 2025
Perry Perry means at the pear tree, from an English place name — and it is reviving, at 1,373rd in the United States and 1,681st in England and Wales.
Boy English 218 in 2025
Vernon Vernon is a Norman place name meaning a place of alders, from a Gaulish word — so a French town gave England a surname that America turned into a first name, three languages deep.
Boy French 133 in 2025
Brett Brett means a Breton — someone from Brittany, which is named for the Britons who fled there when the Anglo-Saxons arrived.
Boy English 144 in 2025
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 132 in 2025
Scotty Peaked in 1971 · 20,087 births since 1915
Boy 159 in 2025
Inez Inez means chaste, and the Spanish spelling hides a Greek original — Agnes became Inés because Spanish dropped the initial vowel sound, so the two look unrelated and are the same name.
Girl Spanish 156 in 2025
Dale Dale is a name from the Old English word for a valley, and like Craig and Heather it is a plain landscape noun rather than a compound.
Boy English 134 in 2025
Virgil Virgil is misspelled and always has been — the poet's name was Vergilius, and medieval scribes changed the e to an i by association with virgo, which is how a Roman family name acquired a meaning it never had.
Boy Latin 129 in 2025
Lenny Lenny is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "lion-strong."
Boy Germanic 189 in 2025
Robyn Robyn is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "bright fame."
Girl Germanic 159 in 2025
Milton Milton means the mill settlement, and there is a second and quite separate source meaning the middle settlement — two entirely different Old English place names that ended up producing exactly the same modern spelling.
Boy English 125 in 2025
Annette Annette is a girl's name meaning grace, a French diminutive of Anne.
Girl French 149 in 2025
Luther Luther means army of the people, and its weight comes from a surname rather than a saint — Martin Luther's family name became a given name across the Protestant world, and then across Black America.
Boy German 122 in 2025
Monte Peaked in 1957 · 24,161 births since 1881
Boy 121 in 2025
Dominique Dominique is a French name meaning of the Lord, given to children born on a Sunday.
Unisex French 172 in 2025
Arnold Arnold means eagle power, and England and Wales ranks it 631st on 59 births — well above the United States at 1,478th, which is not what the name's twentieth-century American associations would predict.
Boy Germanic 120 in 2025
Nathalie Nathalie is a girl's name meaning birthday of the Lord, given to children born at Christmas.
Girl French 145 in 2025
Cecil Cecil means blind, from a Roman family name, and the saint who made it famous is patron of music on the strength of one ambiguous line in her own account of her wedding day.
Boy English 119 in 2025
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 118 in 2025
Randall Randall is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning shield-wolf.
Boy Germanic 117 in 2025
Clarence Clarence is a boy's name taken from an English dukedom, itself named for a Suffolk town.
Boy English 117 in 2025
Freddie Freddie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "peaceful ruler."
Boy Germanic 130 in 2025
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 116 in 2025
Jewel Jewel may descend from the Latin for a joke — the leading account traces it through Old French to jocus, a game or plaything, which would make the most precious thing in the house a toy by origin.
Unisex English 150 in 2025
Dalila Peaked in 1968 · 17,497 births since 1900
Girl Italian 139 in 2025
Brenda Brenda is a girl's name from an Old Norse word for a sword or a torch, and it appears to have been invented for a novel — Walter Scott used it in The Pirate in 1822, and no earlier use is recorded.
Girl Norse 139 in 2025
Terrell Peaked in 1989 · 38,808 births since 1885
Boy 113 in 2025
Paulette Paulette is a girl's name meaning small or humble, a French diminutive of Paul — so it is a diminutive of a name that already means little.
Girl French 138 in 2025
Theresa Theresa is a girl's name of uncertain meaning, the German and English spelling of Teresa.
Girl German 136 in 2025
Lloyd Lloyd is a boy's name from the Welsh word for gray, and the double L is a genuine Welsh consonant that English has no letter for.
Boy Welsh 111 in 2025
Jeffery Jeffery is a boy's name whose first element is disputed, though the second means peace.
Boy Germanic 110 in 2025
Terrance Terrance respells Terrence, and the name descends from a Roman playwright born enslaved in North Africa — Terence was freed by his owner and his Latin became a school text for centuries.
Boy American 109 in 2025
Dwayne Dwayne means the little dark one, from an Irish surname built on the word for black — the same root that gives Dublin its name, which means the black pool the city grew around.
Boy Irish 109 in 2025
Angeline Angeline means messenger, and the Greek word behind it was an ordinary job title — angelos named someone carrying news, and every wing and choir attached to it since came later.
Girl French 134 in 2025
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.
Girl English 133 in 2025
Terrence Terrence descends from a Roman playwright who was born enslaved in North Africa — Terence was freed by his owner, wrote six comedies that survive complete, and shaped Latin prose style for centuries.
Boy Latin 107 in 2025
Chester Chester is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "fortress" or "walled camp."
Boy Latin 107 in 2025
Eddy Peaked in 1970 · 40,378 births since 1924
Boy Dutch 113 in 2025
Alton Alton means the settlement at the river's source, and that is more specific than the old town reading usually given — the Old English element is a spring or wellhead, not age.
Boy English 106 in 2025
Dixie Dixie names the American South and nobody knows why — the leading account is a French ten-dollar note printed dix in Louisiana, and the rival is the Mason-Dixon line.
Girl American 130 in 2025
Todd Todd is a boy's name from a northern English dialect word for a fox, given as a nickname to someone crafty or red-haired.
Boy English 105 in 2025

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