Baby names of 1885

Mary and John topped the lists in 1885, out of 240,854 births recorded across 2,139 different names. That is 1.1% fewer than the 1884 files hold.

← 1884 All years 1886 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	9,128
2	Anna	3,994
3	Emma	2,728
4	Elizabeth	2,582
5	Margaret	2,204
6	Minnie	2,178
7	Clara	1,910
8	Bertha	1,860
9	Ida	1,854
10	Annie	1,703
11	Alice	1,681
12	Florence	1,667
13	Bessie	1,588
14	Grace	1,575
15	Ethel	1,495
16	Nellie	1,432
17	Martha	1,425
18	Sarah	1,424
19	Ella	1,395
20	Mabel	1,349
21	Laura	1,325
22	Carrie	1,283
23	Cora	1,253
24	Maude	1,222
25	Rose	1,164

All 200 girls’ names of 1885 (1,197 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	8,756
2	William	8,044
3	James	5,175
4	George	4,674
5	Charles	4,599
6	Frank	3,067
7	Joseph	2,540
8	Henry	2,406
9	Robert	2,322
10	Thomas	2,266
11	Edward	2,220
12	Harry	2,198
13	Walter	1,808
14	Fred	1,562
15	Arthur	1,516
16	Albert	1,429
17	Clarence	906
18	Samuel	888
19	Louis	809
20	Grover	768
21	Ernest	718
22	David	712
23	Charlie	705
24	Roy	691
25	Joe	681

All 200 boys’ names of 1885 (1,097 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1884:

Lonnie #1,024 → #557 +467
Theodora #930 → #500 +430
Malissie #1,024 → #629 +395
Drucilla #1,024 → #658 +366
Bina #1,024 → #658 +366
Arabella #1,024 → #658 +366
Nonie #1,024 → #658 +366
Winona #930 → #576 +354

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 1884:

Bryant #848 → #422 +426
Butler #971 → #547 +424
Cyril #971 → #547 +424
Gerhard #848 → #439 +409
Rowland #971 → #577 +394
Omar #848 → #480 +368
Ewing #971 → #604 +367
Birt #971 → #604 +367

First recorded in 1885, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1885:

Clotilde 13
Myrna 11
Medora 10
Eulalie 9
Imo 9
Ragna 9
Hildur 9
Octa 8
Hildegarde 8
Emmy 8

First recorded in 1885, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1885:

Lark is here because the boys’ 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.

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.