Baby names of 1912
Mary and John topped the lists in 1912, out of 988,061 births recorded across 5,725 different names. That is 53.4% more than the 1911 files hold. About 6 of them are alive today.
Girls
| # | Name | Births |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mary | 32,304 |
| 2 | Helen | 16,133 |
| 3 | Dorothy | 12,645 |
| 4 | Margaret | 12,536 |
| 5 | Ruth | 11,280 |
| 6 | Mildred | 8,764 |
| 7 | Anna | 8,586 |
| 8 | Elizabeth | 8,527 |
| 9 | Frances | 6,680 |
| 10 | Marie | 6,642 |
| 11 | Alice | 6,285 |
| 12 | Florence | 5,739 |
| 13 | Evelyn | 5,620 |
| 14 | Lillian | 5,568 |
| 15 | Rose | 5,431 |
| 16 | Edna | 5,136 |
| 17 | Louise | 5,116 |
| 18 | Ethel | 5,073 |
| 19 | Gladys | 4,980 |
| 20 | Virginia | 4,810 |
| 21 | Catherine | 4,666 |
| 22 | Irene | 4,646 |
| 23 | Ruby | 4,452 |
| 24 | Grace | 4,418 |
| 25 | Hazel | 4,197 |
All 200 girls’ names of 1912 (3,445 recorded)
Boys
| # | Name | Births |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | John | 24,588 |
| 2 | William | 19,626 |
| 3 | James | 17,644 |
| 4 | Robert | 12,836 |
| 5 | Joseph | 12,062 |
| 6 | George | 11,734 |
| 7 | Charles | 11,070 |
| 8 | Edward | 7,936 |
| 9 | Frank | 7,912 |
| 10 | Thomas | 6,087 |
| 11 | Walter | 5,809 |
| 12 | Henry | 5,643 |
| 13 | Harold | 5,102 |
| 14 | Paul | 4,785 |
| 15 | Arthur | 4,685 |
| 16 | Harry | 4,624 |
| 17 | Albert | 4,587 |
| 18 | Raymond | 4,374 |
| 19 | Richard | 4,188 |
| 20 | Louis | 3,591 |
| 21 | Clarence | 3,590 |
| 22 | Willie | 3,508 |
| 23 | Ralph | 3,435 |
| 24 | Carl | 3,224 |
| 25 | Howard | 3,212 |
All 200 boys’ names of 1912 (2,905 recorded)
Biggest climbers, girls
Names that gained the most ground on 1911:
- Jule #1,545 → #833 +712
- Beula #1,545 → #919 +626
- Noma #1,372 → #770 +602
- Walter #1,372 → #795 +577
- Stasia #1,450 → #960 +490
- Izora #1,450 → #960 +490
- Karen #1,450 → #960 +490
- Edward #1,450 → #978 +472
Walter and Edward are here because the girls’ 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.
Biggest climbers, boys
Names that gained the most ground on 1911:
- Arlo #1,740 → #876 +864
- Guss #1,740 → #892 +848
- Courtney #1,740 → #935 +805
- Masao #1,740 → #935 +805
- Erling #1,740 → #935 +805
- Roswell #1,740 → #970 +770
- Val #1,740 → #970 +770
- Armin #1,740 → #970 +770
Courtney 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.
First recorded in 1912, girls
Names the SSA had never published before 1912:
First recorded in 1912, boys
Names the SSA had never published before 1912:
- Woodroe 25
- Bertil 16
- Harvard 16
- Walfred 15
- Sherrill 14
- Zygmunt 14
- Thurmon 13
- Daryl 13
- Geno 13
- Osmond 12
Sherrill 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.