Baby names of 1923
Mary and John topped the lists in 1923, out of 2,302,468 births recorded across 9,540 different names. That is 0.6% more than the 1922 files hold. About 14,000 of them are alive today.
Girls
| # | Name | Births |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mary | 71,634 |
| 2 | Dorothy | 39,043 |
| 3 | Helen | 31,486 |
| 4 | Margaret | 26,134 |
| 5 | Betty | 25,989 |
| 6 | Ruth | 23,637 |
| 7 | Virginia | 18,325 |
| 8 | Mildred | 15,989 |
| 9 | Elizabeth | 15,459 |
| 10 | Frances | 14,881 |
| 11 | Doris | 14,610 |
| 12 | Evelyn | 13,173 |
| 13 | Anna | 12,865 |
| 14 | Marie | 11,513 |
| 15 | Alice | 11,331 |
| 16 | Marjorie | 10,220 |
| 17 | Irene | 10,054 |
| 18 | Florence | 9,746 |
| 19 | Jean | 9,511 |
| 20 | Lillian | 9,328 |
| 21 | Martha | 8,961 |
| 22 | Louise | 8,882 |
| 23 | Rose | 8,440 |
| 24 | Catherine | 8,437 |
| 25 | Ruby | 8,232 |
All 200 girls’ names of 1923 (5,739 recorded)
Boys
| # | Name | Births |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | John | 57,467 |
| 2 | Robert | 56,111 |
| 3 | William | 52,136 |
| 4 | James | 50,462 |
| 5 | Charles | 28,966 |
| 6 | George | 27,025 |
| 7 | Joseph | 25,561 |
| 8 | Edward | 20,597 |
| 9 | Richard | 18,887 |
| 10 | Donald | 16,433 |
| 11 | Frank | 15,903 |
| 12 | Thomas | 15,886 |
| 13 | Harold | 13,874 |
| 14 | Paul | 13,362 |
| 15 | Raymond | 12,460 |
| 16 | Walter | 12,433 |
| 17 | Jack | 11,190 |
| 18 | Henry | 11,067 |
| 19 | Arthur | 9,924 |
| 20 | Albert | 9,825 |
| 21 | Kenneth | 9,734 |
| 22 | Harry | 9,261 |
| 23 | Ralph | 8,629 |
| 24 | David | 8,230 |
| 25 | Eugene | 7,947 |
All 200 boys’ names of 1923 (4,904 recorded)
Biggest climbers, girls
Names that gained the most ground on 1922:
- Eris #2,291 → #457 +1,834
- Penny #1,508 → #889 +619
- Laurene #1,309 → #992 +317
- Cruz #1,103 → #793 +310
- Dorene #1,207 → #901 +306
- Laurel #774 → #486 +288
- Marlene #969 → #687 +282
- Lynette #1,232 → #953 +279
Cruz 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 1922:
- Marcos #1,333 → #930 +403
- Armin #1,333 → #992 +341
- Godfrey #1,222 → #913 +309
- Betty #1,222 → #913 +309
- Val #1,181 → #873 +308
- Curley #1,259 → #954 +305
- Newman #1,282 → #992 +290
- Margaret #1,242 → #954 +288
Betty and Margaret 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.
First recorded in 1923, girls
Names the SSA had never published before 1923:
First recorded in 1923, boys
Names the SSA had never published before 1923:
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.