Baby names of 1922

Mary and John topped the lists in 1922, out of 2,289,157 births recorded across 9,658 different names. That is 1.9% fewer than the 1921 files hold. About 8,700 of them are alive today.

← 1921 All years 1923 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	72,177
2	Dorothy	37,716
3	Helen	32,510
4	Margaret	26,862
5	Ruth	23,633
6	Betty	20,895
7	Virginia	19,144
8	Mildred	16,412
9	Elizabeth	15,244
10	Frances	15,054
11	Doris	13,798
12	Anna	13,408
13	Evelyn	13,320
14	Marie	11,912
15	Alice	11,277
16	Marjorie	10,385
17	Irene	10,173
18	Florence	10,036
19	Lillian	9,430
20	Jean	9,109
21	Martha	9,021
22	Louise	8,886
23	Rose	8,791
24	Catherine	8,537
25	Gladys	8,042

All 200 girls’ names of 1922 (5,789 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	57,280
2	Robert	53,796
3	William	51,111
4	James	49,802
5	Charles	28,839
6	George	27,350
7	Joseph	25,699
8	Edward	20,419
9	Richard	17,537
10	Frank	16,013
11	Thomas	15,261
12	Donald	14,913
13	Harold	13,593
14	Paul	12,922
15	Walter	12,631
16	Raymond	12,129
17	Henry	11,207
18	Jack	10,847
19	Arthur	10,114
20	Albert	9,896
21	Kenneth	9,258
22	Harry	9,077
23	Ralph	8,484
24	David	7,865
25	Eugene	7,849

All 200 boys’ names of 1922 (4,967 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1921:

Lilia #1,543 → #917 +626
Leatrice #1,258 → #685 +573
Phylis #1,409 → #997 +412
Darleen #1,258 → #906 +352
Madlyn #1,136 → #841 +295
Ivory #1,222 → #949 +273
Marilynn #657 → #388 +269
Retta #1,205 → #962 +243

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1921:

Desmond #1,360 → #840 +520
Gorden #1,226 → #722 +504
Jackie #1,140 → #722 +418
Daryl #843 → #426 +417
Brown #1,360 → #999 +361
Linton #1,329 → #999 +330
Donnie #1,267 → #949 +318
Buel #1,122 → #850 +272

Jackie 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 1922, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1922:

Evelean 14
Dorismae 13
Donaldine 12
Gavina 11
Memory 11
Arlita 11
Winna 9
Bettey 9
Claria 9
Wortha 8

First recorded in 1922, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1922:

Daren 35
Derral 13
Stoney 10
Elliotte 9
Vahe 9
Evern 9
Crafton 9
Volley 8
Bernarr 8
Hagop 8

Elliotte 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.