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

22,357 names, most popular first in United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

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
Norman Norman means a Northman — a Viking.
Boy English #1,197 in US
Angelique Angelique means angelic, and the Greek root behind it simply means a messenger — the wings arrived much later in art, layered onto an ordinary word that described a person carrying news from one place to another.
Girl French #1,197 in US
Sandra Sandra is a girl's name that began as an Italian short form of Alessandra and became independent in the twentieth century.
Girl Italian #1,207 in US
Gerald Gerald is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning rule of the spear, and it gave Ireland one of its great Norman dynasties, the FitzGeralds.
Boy Germanic #1,208 in US
Carolyn Carolyn is a girl's name, an English elaboration of Caroline meaning free man through Charles.
Girl English #1,222 in US
Elmer Elmer means noble and famous, and its American popularity is traceable to two brothers — the Ebenezer and Jonathan Elmer who signed early revolutionary documents, after whom patriotic families went on to name sons.
Boy English #1,223 in US
Eliette Peaked in 1933 · 8,733 births since 1902
Girl French #1,244 in US
Marlene Marlene was invented by the woman who made it famous — Marie Magdalene Dietrich contracted her own two names into one.
Girl German #1,261 in US
Addie Addie shortens Adelaide and Adeline alike, and both descend from the Germanic word for noble — the same adal that sits inside Alice, Allison and Albert.
Girl English #1,275 in US
Karen Karen is a girl's name, the Danish form of Katherine, and it inherits that name's genuinely unknown meaning.
Girl Danish #1,284 in US
Rita Rita is a girl's name meaning pearl, clipped from the end of Margarita rather than the front.
Girl Greek #1,290 in US
Willie Willie is a pet form of William meaning resolute protector, and one of the more genuinely mixed names in our records — a quarter of the births we hold are female, which is unusual for a name read today as male.
Unisex Germanic #1,317 in US
Sidney Sidney is a name of Old English origin meaning "wide meadow."
Unisex English #1,326 in US
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 #1,331 in US
Farrah Farrah is a girl's name of Arabic origin meaning "joy," and its peak in our records is 1977 — the year after one poster sold twelve million copies.
Girl Arabic #1,331 in US
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 #1,332 in US
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 #1,352 in US
Georgie Georgie is a unisex name of Greek origin meaning "farmer," a diminutive of George and Georgia alike.
Unisex English #1,366 in US
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 #1,371 in US
Perry Perry means at the pear tree, from an English place name — and our data marks it reviving, at 1373rd in the United States and 1681st in England and Wales.
Boy English #1,373 in US
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 #1,383 in US
Brett Brett means a Breton — someone from Brittany, which is named for the Britons who fled there when the Anglo-Saxons arrived.
Boy English #1,385 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
Scotty Peaked in 1971 · 20,087 births since 1915
Boy #1,393 in US
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 #1,400 in US
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 #1,409 in US
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 #1,412 in US
Lenny Lenny is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "lion-strong."
Boy Germanic #1,418 in US
Robyn Robyn is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "bright fame."
Girl Germanic #1,439 in US
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 #1,440 in US
Annette Annette is a girl's name meaning grace, a French diminutive of Anne.
Girl French #1,449 in US
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 #1,463 in US
Monte Peaked in 1957 · 24,161 births since 1881
Boy #1,470 in US
Dominique Dominique is a French name meaning of the Lord, given to children born on a Sunday.
Unisex French #1,476 in US
Arnold Arnold means eagle power, and England and Wales ranks it 631st on 59 births — well above the United States at 1478th, which is not what the name's twentieth-century American associations would predict.
Boy Germanic #1,478 in US
Nathalie Nathalie is a girl's name meaning birthday of the Lord, given to children born at Christmas.
Girl French #1,481 in US
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 #1,489 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
Randall Randall is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning shield-wolf.
Boy Germanic #1,499 in US
Clarence Clarence is a boy's name taken from an English dukedom, itself named for a Suffolk town.
Boy English #1,501 in US
Freddie Freddie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "peaceful ruler."
Boy Germanic #1,509 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
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 #1,516 in US
Dalila Peaked in 1968 · 17,497 births since 1900
Girl Italian #1,527 in US
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 #1,528 in US
Terrell Peaked in 1989 · 38,808 births since 1885
Boy #1,534 in US
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 #1,539 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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