Baby names of 1897

Mary and John topped the lists in 1897, out of 346,957 births recorded across 2,763 different names. That is 2.9% fewer than the 1896 files hold.

← 1896 All years 1898 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	13,413
2	Anna	5,429
3	Helen	4,519
4	Margaret	4,146
5	Ruth	3,878
6	Elizabeth	3,442
7	Florence	3,369
8	Ethel	3,182
9	Marie	3,078
10	Emma	2,698
11	Lillian	2,683
12	Edna	2,567
13	Bertha	2,502
14	Grace	2,458
15	Clara	2,454
16	Alice	2,431
17	Bessie	2,407
18	Hazel	2,339
19	Rose	2,316
20	Annie	2,307
21	Minnie	2,284
22	Mabel	2,222
23	Gertrude	2,135
24	Ida	2,108
25	Pearl	2,076

All 200 girls’ names of 1897 (1,799 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	7,550
2	William	7,198
3	James	5,113
4	George	4,078
5	Charles	3,341
6	Joseph	2,827
7	Frank	2,726
8	Robert	2,701
9	Edward	2,121
10	Henry	1,994
11	Thomas	1,980
12	Walter	1,895
13	Harry	1,879
14	Arthur	1,647
15	Albert	1,377
16	Fred	1,301
17	Clarence	1,201
18	Willie	1,151
19	Roy	999
20	Paul	923
21	Harold	860
22	Raymond	837
23	Louis	831
24	Earl	829
25	Carl	828

All 200 boys’ names of 1897 (1,229 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1896:

Lupe #1,583 → #895 +688
Dortha #1,583 → #931 +652
Judy #1,583 → #931 +652
Carl #1,583 → #931 +652
Dagmar #1,416 → #786 +630
Sigrid #1,292 → #681 +611
Tula #1,583 → #982 +601
Adline #1,583 → #982 +601

Carl 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 1896:

Roswell #982 → #473 +509
Theron #982 → #495 +487
Rush #1,101 → #615 +486
Alois #1,101 → #615 +486
Helmer #982 → #515 +467
Arnett #1,101 → #652 +449
Rogers #1,101 → #652 +449
Murphy #982 → #556 +426

First recorded in 1897, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1897:

First recorded in 1897, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1897:

Dabney and Diamond 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.

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.