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

Theresa Theresa is a girl's name of uncertain meaning, the German and English spelling of Teresa.
Girl German #1,548 in US
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 #1,553 in US
Jeffery Jeffery is a boy's name whose first element is genuinely disputed, though the second means peace.
Boy Germanic #1,562 in US
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 #1,565 in US
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 #1,570 in US
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 #1,571 in US
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 #1,583 in US
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 #1,585 in US
Chester Chester is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "fortress" or "walled camp."
Boy Latin #1,597 in US
Eddy Peaked in 1970 · 40,378 births since 1924
Boy Dutch #1,604 in US
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 #1,605 in US
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 #1,605 in US
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 #1,619 in US
Cristina Cristina shares its root with Kirsten in this same group, but arrived by a southern route — Italian and Spanish rather than Scandinavian, from the Greek word for a follower of the anointed one.
Girl Italian #1,624 in US
Yvette Yvette is a girl's name from a Germanic word for the yew tree, by way of Breton.
Girl French #1,625 in US
Antony Peaked in 1988 · 33,436 births since 1900
Boy Dutch #1,625 in US
Nell Nell is a girl's name that reached its modern form through a medieval habit of mishearing, from "mine Ellen" run together.
Girl English #1,628 in US
Arlene Arlene has no established origin at all — it appears in the nineteenth century with no traceable parent name, and the Irish pledge reading usually given for it belongs to a different name entirely.
Girl American #1,633 in US
Lester Lester means from Leicester, and the spelling is the honest one — Leicester has been pronounced LES-ter for centuries, so the surname simply wrote down what people had actually been saying to each other all along.
Boy English #1,636 in US
Woodrow Peaked in 1918 · 39,634 births since 1900
Boy #1,648 in US
Myron Myron means myrrh, and the resin was worth its weight in gold — traded up the incense routes from southern Arabia, used for embalming, and one of the three gifts in Matthew.
Boy Greek #1,650 in US
Maribel Peaked in 1980 · 25,421 births since 1906
Girl #1,654 in US
Kent Kent is the oldest recorded place name in England — Cantium appears in Greek writing before the Roman invasion, and its meaning was already uncertain to the Romans who wrote it down.
Boy English #1,658 in US
Geneva Geneva is not named after the Swiss city — it is a form of Genevieve, whose own meaning is unsettled, and the city's name comes from a Celtic word for a bend or estuary entirely separately.
Girl English #1,660 in US
Ervin Peaked in 1921 · 39,948 births since 1880
Boy #1,661 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
Lois Lois is a girl's name that appears once in the New Testament, in a letter naming Timothy's grandmother, and its meaning has never been established.
Girl Greek #1,669 in US
Adrienne Adrienne means from Hadria, an Italian town that also named the Adriatic Sea — so the name and the sea are both called after a small settlement whose own name is uncertain.
Girl French #1,677 in US
Denise Denise is a girl's name, the French feminine of Denis, and like it traces to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine.
Girl French #1,681 in US
Alannah Alannah is a girl's name from the Irish term of endearment a leanbh, meaning "O child," so it began as something said to a baby rather than something anyone was called.
Girl Irish #1,683 in US
Marielle Peaked in 1964 · 22,221 births since 1900
Girl Dutch #1,696 in US
Darrell Darrell does not mean beloved.
Boy French #1,698 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
Leticia Leticia means joy, and Napoleon's mother carried it — Letizia Ramolino outlived her son and was styled Madame Mère de l'Empereur, a title created for her alone.
Girl Spanish #1,703 in US
Henri Henri is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "home ruler," borne by four kings of France and by the one who converted to end a religious war.
Boy French #1,725 in US
Kristina Kristina means a follower of Christ, the Scandinavian and Slavic form of Christina.
Girl Scandinavian #1,727 in US
Lori Lori is a girl's name, a short form of Laura meaning laurel.
Girl Latin #1,732 in US
Clinton Clinton means the settlement on the hill, from an English place name — and the two American presidents who carried it did so by adoption and by surname, not by descent from the place.
Boy English #1,740 in US
Lucinda Lucinda was invented by Cervantes — the name appears in Don Quixote in 1605 and has no record before it, which makes it one of the few names on this site with a datable author.
Girl Spanish #1,747 in US
Rosemarie Rosemarie looks like Rose plus Marie, and as a name it is — but the herb rosemary has nothing to do with either, and the resemblance is one of the neatest coincidences in naming.
Girl German #1,758 in US
Morris Morris means dark-skinned, from the Latin for a Moor — and the morris dance carries the same word, having been thought to imitate Moorish dancing when it reached England.
Boy English #1,762 in US
Maryann Maryann joins two names whose own meanings are unsettled — Mary has never been securely derived from the Hebrew, and Ann means grace, so only half of the compound has a firm reading.
Girl English #1,772 in US
Tess Tess is a girl's name of Greek origin, a short form of Theresa whose meaning has never been established despite centuries of attempts.
Girl English #1,783 in US
Irving Irving names a Scottish river valley, and it reached American use largely through one writer — Washington Irving, who gave English both Rip Van Winkle and the nickname Gotham for New York.
Boy Scottish #1,789 in US
Don Don is a boy's name shortened from Donald, meaning world ruler.
Boy Scottish #1,794 in US
Belinda Belinda is a literary invention with a snake in it — the Germanic element behind it is usually read as a serpent, and Pope's Rape of the Lock made the name fashionable in 1712.
Girl English #1,826 in US
Josette Josette is the only faded name in this group — it peaked in France at 6,650 births in 1946 and now ranks nowhere in France at all, surviving only in the United States at 1837th.
Girl French #1,837 in US
Darlene Darlene is a girl's name built from the English word darling, and it is one of a small group of American twentieth-century coinages that used the -ene ending.
Girl English #1,846 in US

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