Baby names of 1889

Mary and John topped the lists in 1889, out of 288,946 births recorded across 2,390 different names. That is 3.5% fewer than the 1888 files hold.

← 1888 All years 1890 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	11,648
2	Anna	5,062
3	Elizabeth	3,058
4	Margaret	2,917
5	Emma	2,884
6	Minnie	2,624
7	Florence	2,465
8	Ethel	2,463
9	Bessie	2,343
10	Clara	2,319
11	Bertha	2,293
12	Alice	2,145
13	Annie	2,123
14	Ida	2,122
15	Grace	2,049
16	Mabel	1,947
17	Helen	1,909
18	Edna	1,815
19	Nellie	1,752
20	Sarah	1,730
21	Martha	1,711
22	Ella	1,647
23	Lillian	1,640
24	Pearl	1,588
25	Laura	1,567

All 200 girls’ names of 1889 (1,479 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	8,548
2	William	7,772
3	James	5,020
4	George	4,430
5	Charles	4,199
6	Frank	2,975
7	Joseph	2,729
8	Harry	2,559
9	Robert	2,513
10	Edward	2,299
11	Henry	2,286
12	Thomas	2,233
13	Walter	1,916
14	Arthur	1,668
15	Fred	1,554
16	Albert	1,353
17	Clarence	984
18	Roy	888
19	Louis	837
20	Samuel	810
21	Benjamin	760
22	David	757
23	Ernest	736
24	Richard	711
25	Joe	709

All 200 boys’ names of 1889 (1,111 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1888:

Hellen #1,276 → #641 +635
Diana #1,136 → #567 +569
Hope #1,136 → #600 +536
Valerie #1,276 → #757 +519
Adelle #1,276 → #757 +519
Ova #1,276 → #757 +519
Hazle #1,136 → #657 +479
Edla #1,276 → #802 +474

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1888:

Connie #1,031 → #525 +506
Hamilton #917 → #434 +483
Ballard #1,031 → #549 +482
Bertie #917 → #464 +453
Essie #1,031 → #581 +450
Beverly #917 → #498 +419
Lonie #917 → #498 +419
Grady #704 → #294 +410

Connie, Bertie, Essie, Beverly and Lonie 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 1889, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1889:

Erla 10
Cressie 10
Marvel 9
Noemie 9
Zela 8
Jessamine 7
Renee 7
Ader 7
Edrie 7
Nannette 7

First recorded in 1889, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1889:

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.