Baby names of 1883

Mary and John topped the lists in 1883, out of 216,945 births recorded across 1,962 different names. That is 2.1% fewer than the 1882 files hold.

← 1882 All years 1884 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	8,012
2	Anna	3,306
3	Emma	2,367
4	Elizabeth	2,255
5	Minnie	2,035
6	Margaret	1,881
7	Bertha	1,681
8	Ida	1,634
9	Annie	1,589
10	Clara	1,548
11	Alice	1,488
12	Sarah	1,359
13	Grace	1,307
14	Florence	1,298
15	Martha	1,255
16	Ella	1,251
17	Nellie	1,246
18	Bessie	1,241
19	Laura	1,183
20	Ethel	1,132
21	Carrie	1,108
22	Maude	1,096
23	Mabel	1,086
24	Cora	1,081
25	Gertrude	923

All 200 girls’ names of 1883 (1,054 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	8,894
2	William	8,387
3	James	5,223
4	Charles	4,826
5	George	4,736
6	Frank	2,986
7	Joseph	2,515
8	Henry	2,383
9	Robert	2,334
10	Thomas	2,316
11	Edward	2,250
12	Harry	2,110
13	Walter	1,705
14	Arthur	1,591
15	Fred	1,502
16	Albert	1,496
17	Samuel	937
18	Clarence	837
19	Louis	796
20	David	734
21	Richard	649
22	Charlie	643
23	Ernest	641
24	Andrew	623
25	Daniel	615

All 200 boys’ names of 1883 (1,030 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1882:

Cathryn #908 → #517 +391
Paula #813 → #435 +378
Annis #908 → #536 +372
Malissa #740 → #375 +365
Hope #813 → #465 +348
Joseph #813 → #465 +348
Fredericka #908 → #561 +347
Leatha #908 → #579 +329

Joseph 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 1882:

Sumner #943 → #527 +416
Alf #837 → #460 +377
Arlie #837 → #479 +358
Everette #837 → #479 +358
Ocie #943 → #597 +346
Jonah #943 → #597 +346
Hollie #943 → #597 +346
Rube #943 → #597 +346

Ocie and Hollie are here because the boys’ file records them: 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.

First recorded in 1883, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1883:

Laurel 12
Lelar 10
Matilde 10
Thora 9
Simona 9
Loraine 8
Ema 8
Dina 8
Missie 8
Dagmar 8

First recorded in 1883, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1883:

Rosco 8
Festus 8
Brady 8
Odell 8
Wess 7
Delmer 7
Rogers 7
Chauncy 7
Jimmy 7
Milas 7

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.