Baby names of 1882

Mary and John topped the lists in 1882, out of 221,533 births recorded across 2,012 different names. That is 15.0% more than the 1881 files hold.

← 1881 All years 1883 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	8,148
2	Anna	3,143
3	Emma	2,303
4	Elizabeth	2,186
5	Minnie	2,004
6	Margaret	1,821
7	Ida	1,673
8	Alice	1,542
9	Bertha	1,508
10	Annie	1,492
11	Clara	1,490
12	Sarah	1,410
13	Florence	1,322
14	Martha	1,229
15	Ella	1,206
16	Grace	1,195
17	Laura	1,151
18	Bessie	1,144
19	Nellie	1,138
20	Maude	1,089
21	Cora	1,076
22	Carrie	1,037
23	Mabel	997
24	Ethel	989
25	Mattie	966

All 200 girls’ names of 1882 (1,028 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	9,557
2	William	9,298
3	James	5,892
4	George	5,193
5	Charles	5,091
6	Frank	3,176
7	Joseph	2,670
8	Thomas	2,610
9	Henry	2,579
10	Robert	2,500
11	Edward	2,477
12	Harry	2,232
13	Walter	1,805
14	Arthur	1,686
15	Fred	1,641
16	Albert	1,499
17	Samuel	1,003
18	Louis	852
19	David	838
20	Clarence	837
21	Charlie	753
22	Richard	746
23	Joe	739
24	Andrew	673
25	Will	666

All 200 boys’ names of 1882 (1,099 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1881:

Clementine #740 → #360 +380
Lissie #830 → #493 +337
Lonnie #830 → #507 +323
Erna #830 → #530 +300
Hedwig #830 → #530 +300
Corda #830 → #560 +270
Josiephine #830 → #560 +270
Luvenia #740 → #475 +265

Lonnie is here because the girls’ file records it: the SSA publishes every name given to five or more babies of one sex, and a rank is a position within that list. It is not a claim about whose name it is.

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1881:

Clarance #866 → #399 +467
Webster #866 → #437 +429
Neil #781 → #416 +365
Elmore #866 → #514 +352
Cliff #866 → #514 +352
Okey #866 → #514 +352
Lincoln #866 → #514 +352
Troy #781 → #453 +328

First recorded in 1882, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1882:

Verda 14
Nelly 10
Attie 10
Gretchen 10
Hermina 10
Hetty 9
Luetta 9
Eller 9
Pennie 9
Rosemary 9

First recorded in 1882, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1882:

Cleve 13
Reinhold 10
Linus 10
Junior 9
Mills 8
Armstead 8
Gibson 8
Ace 8
Brice 8
Benedict 8

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration national baby-name files. Names given to fewer than five babies in a year are not published, so the totals here run below the true number of births. How far below is not the same in every year: the files hold 201,484 births for 1880 and 3,315,343 for 2025, so a change from one year to the next in the early decades is partly a change in what the record covers.