Given names
Every first name in the Social Security records, 1880 to 2025 — 105,966 of them.
Most given, girls
| # | Name | Births |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mary | 4,141,481 |
| 2 | Elizabeth | 1,688,757 |
| 3 | Patricia | 1,573,623 |
| 4 | Jennifer | 1,471,703 |
| 5 | Linda | 1,455,143 |
| 6 | Barbara | 1,436,695 |
| 7 | Margaret | 1,264,774 |
| 8 | Susan | 1,123,481 |
| 9 | Dorothy | 1,112,231 |
| 10 | Sarah | 1,098,498 |
| 11 | Jessica | 1,050,729 |
| 12 | Helen | 1,024,202 |
| 13 | Nancy | 1,004,448 |
| 14 | Betty | 1,001,238 |
| 15 | Karen | 987,989 |
| 16 | Lisa | 967,229 |
| 17 | Anna | 914,859 |
| 18 | Emily | 896,487 |
| 19 | Sandra | 875,531 |
| 20 | Ashley | 859,857 |
| 21 | Kimberly | 846,393 |
| 22 | Ruth | 836,122 |
| 23 | Donna | 831,641 |
| 24 | Carol | 816,928 |
| 25 | Michelle | 816,510 |
Most given, boys
| # | Name | Births |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | James | 5,250,638 |
| 2 | John | 5,182,633 |
| 3 | Robert | 4,849,730 |
| 4 | Michael | 4,426,753 |
| 5 | William | 4,199,696 |
| 6 | David | 3,676,654 |
| 7 | Joseph | 2,669,490 |
| 8 | Richard | 2,577,552 |
| 9 | Charles | 2,434,659 |
| 10 | Thomas | 2,358,576 |
| 11 | Christopher | 2,069,596 |
| 12 | Daniel | 1,982,812 |
| 13 | Matthew | 1,654,075 |
| 14 | Anthony | 1,488,042 |
| 15 | George | 1,487,297 |
| 16 | Donald | 1,414,824 |
| 17 | Paul | 1,398,293 |
| 18 | Mark | 1,362,176 |
| 19 | Andrew | 1,329,454 |
| 20 | Edward | 1,303,594 |
| 21 | Steven | 1,293,124 |
| 22 | Kenneth | 1,283,974 |
| 23 | Joshua | 1,248,929 |
| 24 | Kevin | 1,184,507 |
| 25 | Brian | 1,173,735 |
The oldest and youngest names
Half the living Myrtles in America are over 81. The median Ailany has not had a first birthday.
Median age of people alive today who were given the name, from SSA birth records aged forward through SSA cohort life tables. Limited to names with at least 10,000 living bearers, so the figure rests on a real population.
Names that changed sex
Ashley was a boy’s name until 1964, Leslie until 1946, and Jean went the other way in 1990. 581 names have crossed from one sex to the other, and some of them crossed back.
By the year they were given
Every year from 1880 to 2025 has its own page, with the top 200 each way, the biggest climbers and the names recorded for the first time.
How far a few names go
The most common names used to cover far more of a year’s babies than they do now. Ten names meant 29.1% of the babies born in 1950 and 7.5% of those born in 2025.
| Year | Births recorded | Top 10 | Top 100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1900 | 450,258 | 24.4% | 70.2% |
| 1925 | 2,333,303 | 27.7% | 68.7% |
| 1950 | 3,503,316 | 29.1% | 72.9% |
| 1975 | 3,019,218 | 21.7% | 61.8% |
| 2000 | 3,780,037 | 11.9% | 49.1% |
| 2025 | 3,315,343 | 7.5% | 34.9% |
A rank is a position within one sex’s list, so “top 10” is the ten most common girls’ names and the ten most common boys’ names together. Every share is of the births in the second column, which are the ones the SSA published rather than all the ones that happened. The early files hold far fewer, so the top of this table rests on a much smaller record than the bottom.
The names that arrived overnight
The biggest one-year climbs in the whole record, measured the same way the year pages measure them — places gained on the year before, landing inside the top 100.
| Name | Year | From | To |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bentley | 2010 | 514 | 100 |
| Marlene | 1931 | 388 | 95 |
| Jaime | 1976 | 263 | 29 |
| Jase | 2013 | 304 | 89 |
| Selena | 1995 | 301 | 91 |
| Mariah | 1991 | 259 | 69 |
| Cleveland | 1884 | 279 | 92 |
| Woodrow | 1912 | 232 | 46 |
| Ethan | 1989 | 261 | 87 |
| Jenna | 1984 | 215 | 54 |
The records say what children were called and never why. The year is usually the whole explanation, and where it is not, it is not in this data either.
Names that have all but gone
Names that reached the top 50 of their year and were given to 20 babies or fewer in 2025. Not absent — the SSA publishes down to five births, so these are still in the file, in single and double figures.
| Name | Best rank | Year | In 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phyllis | 24th | 1929 | 7 |
| Peggy | 31st | 1937 | 12 |
| Wanda | 47th | 1934 | 20 |
| Gail | 36th | 1951 | 12 |
| Rhonda | 37th | 1965 | 19 |
| Gertrude | 22nd | 1906 | 17 |
| Bessie | 9th | 1889 | 16 |
| Cathy | 34th | 1958 | 12 |
| Vicki | 50th | 1954 | 0 |
| Terri | 46th | 1959 | 19 |
| Myrtle | 27th | 1894 | 8 |
| Tonya | 36th | 1973 | 11 |
Every name on this list is a girls’ name. Widen it to the top 100 and it is 26 girls’ names to 3 boys’.
Source: US Social Security Administration national baby-name files, 1880–2025. Names given to fewer than five babies in a year are not published.