Baby names of 1903

Mary and John topped the lists in 1903, out of 381,200 births recorded across 3,096 different names. That is 1.4% fewer than the 1902 files hold.

← 1902 All years 1904 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	14,275
2	Helen	6,129
3	Anna	5,098
4	Margaret	5,045
5	Ruth	4,517
6	Elizabeth	3,724
7	Marie	3,469
8	Florence	3,468
9	Ethel	3,257
10	Mildred	3,088
11	Dorothy	3,078
12	Alice	2,996
13	Lillian	2,972
14	Gladys	2,674
15	Edna	2,667
16	Grace	2,616
17	Annie	2,551
18	Rose	2,478
19	Frances	2,365
20	Clara	2,342
21	Bessie	2,339
22	Bertha	2,309
23	Emma	2,308
24	Gertrude	2,253
25	Mabel	2,163

All 200 girls’ names of 1903 (2,083 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	7,608
2	William	6,311
3	James	5,479
4	George	3,961
5	Charles	3,213
6	Joseph	3,121
7	Robert	3,044
8	Frank	2,644
9	Edward	2,268
10	Thomas	1,962
11	Henry	1,922
12	Walter	1,840
13	Harry	1,647
14	Willie	1,454
15	Arthur	1,435
16	Albert	1,337
17	Clarence	1,261
18	Fred	1,204
19	Paul	1,081
20	Harold	1,065
21	Raymond	1,051
22	Roy	975
23	Carl	910
24	Joe	895
25	Louis	889

All 200 boys’ names of 1903 (1,306 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1902:

Rafaela #1,793 → #789 +1,004
Evia #1,793 → #836 +957
Euphemia #1,793 → #931 +862
Janette #1,594 → #836 +758
Louis #1,594 → #836 +758
Romaine #1,594 → #931 +663
Lavera #1,594 → #931 +663
Dana #1,594 → #931 +663

Louis 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 1902:

Garnett #1,137 → #527 +610
Jordan #1,013 → #451 +562
Reynold #1,137 → #576 +561
Artis #1,137 → #595 +542
Josiah #1,137 → #619 +518
Cleon #1,137 → #656 +481
Duane #1,013 → #550 +463
Sebastian #1,137 → #696 +441

First recorded in 1903, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1903:

Lavelle 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.

First recorded in 1903, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1903:

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.