Baby names of 1921
Mary and John topped the lists in 1921, out of 2,334,507 births recorded across 9,728 different names. That is 3.2% more than the 1920 files hold. About 5,500 of them are alive today.
Girls
| # | Name | Births |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mary | 73,984 |
| 2 | Dorothy | 39,087 |
| 3 | Helen | 34,822 |
| 4 | Margaret | 28,468 |
| 5 | Ruth | 25,783 |
| 6 | Virginia | 19,032 |
| 7 | Mildred | 17,880 |
| 8 | Betty | 17,638 |
| 9 | Frances | 15,993 |
| 10 | Elizabeth | 15,800 |
| 11 | Anna | 14,476 |
| 12 | Evelyn | 14,278 |
| 13 | Doris | 13,152 |
| 14 | Marie | 12,501 |
| 15 | Alice | 11,955 |
| 16 | Marjorie | 11,209 |
| 17 | Florence | 10,720 |
| 18 | Irene | 10,624 |
| 19 | Lillian | 9,770 |
| 20 | Rose | 9,352 |
| 21 | Martha | 9,264 |
| 22 | Louise | 9,180 |
| 23 | Catherine | 8,887 |
| 24 | Gladys | 8,814 |
| 25 | Jean | 8,592 |
All 200 girls’ names of 1921 (5,871 recorded)
Boys
| # | Name | Births |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | John | 58,216 |
| 2 | Robert | 52,779 |
| 3 | William | 51,862 |
| 4 | James | 49,750 |
| 5 | Charles | 29,242 |
| 6 | George | 27,476 |
| 7 | Joseph | 26,182 |
| 8 | Edward | 20,817 |
| 9 | Frank | 16,705 |
| 10 | Richard | 16,376 |
| 11 | Thomas | 15,308 |
| 12 | Harold | 13,811 |
| 13 | Donald | 13,776 |
| 14 | Paul | 13,169 |
| 15 | Walter | 13,004 |
| 16 | Raymond | 12,645 |
| 17 | Henry | 11,411 |
| 18 | Jack | 10,757 |
| 19 | Arthur | 10,527 |
| 20 | Albert | 10,158 |
| 21 | Harry | 9,731 |
| 22 | Kenneth | 8,959 |
| 23 | Ralph | 8,860 |
| 24 | Warren | 7,798 |
| 25 | David | 7,765 |
All 200 boys’ names of 1921 (4,985 recorded)
Biggest climbers, girls
Names that gained the most ground on 1920:
- Elwanda #4,975 → #737 +4,238
- Noreen #1,255 → #797 +458
- Venice #1,375 → #935 +440
- Isobel #1,312 → #969 +343
- Aida #1,119 → #813 +306
- Toby #1,255 → #964 +291
- Mardell #1,206 → #919 +287
- Arlie #1,103 → #828 +275
Toby and Arlie 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 1920:
First recorded in 1921, girls
Names the SSA had never published before 1921:
- Marilynne 13
- Gwenda 12
- Adean 11
- Lodena 11
- Garnelle 11
- Bernace 10
- Philomenia 10
- Alpharetta 10
- Wiletta 9
- Bettyjean 9
First recorded in 1921, boys
Names the SSA had never published before 1921:
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.