Baby names of 1924

Mary and Robert topped the lists in 1924, out of 2,381,614 births recorded across 9,733 different names. That is 3.4% more than the 1923 files hold. About 22,000 of them are alive today.

← 1923 All years 1925 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	73,534
2	Dorothy	39,996
3	Helen	31,194
4	Betty	30,600
5	Margaret	26,547
6	Ruth	23,601
7	Virginia	18,620
8	Mildred	15,853
9	Doris	15,786
10	Frances	15,183
11	Elizabeth	14,950
12	Evelyn	13,358
13	Anna	13,076
14	Marie	11,575
15	Alice	11,537
16	Jean	10,721
17	Marjorie	10,069
18	Irene	9,928
19	Shirley	9,489
20	Florence	9,472
21	Martha	9,320
22	Lois	9,300
23	Lillian	9,100
24	Louise	8,854
25	Rose	8,479

All 200 girls’ names of 1924 (5,900 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Robert	60,802
2	John	59,052
3	William	53,506
4	James	52,942
5	Charles	30,460
6	George	27,373
7	Joseph	25,421
8	Richard	21,244
9	Edward	21,126
10	Donald	17,929
11	Thomas	16,555
12	Frank	16,044
13	Harold	14,149
14	Paul	13,338
15	Raymond	12,873
16	Walter	12,696
17	Jack	11,921
18	Henry	11,195
19	Kenneth	10,355
20	Arthur	10,172
21	Albert	9,880
22	Harry	9,115
23	Ralph	8,766
24	David	8,758
25	Eugene	8,346

All 200 boys’ names of 1924 (4,970 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1923:

Bettylou #1,327 → #868 +459
Doloris #1,350 → #976 +374
Gaynell #1,283 → #951 +332
Toby #1,305 → #992 +313
Letty #1,213 → #951 +262
Elida #1,231 → #992 +239
Savannah #1,027 → #792 +235
Dorthey #1,231 → #999 +232

Toby 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 1923:

Faustino #1,420 → #984 +436
Conway #1,275 → #937 +338
Coolidge #1,041 → #731 +310
Chas #1,235 → #944 +291
Leopoldo #1,194 → #907 +287
Vernie #1,008 → #737 +271
Virgle #941 → #677 +264
Darold #1,157 → #897 +260

Vernie 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 1924, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1924:

First recorded in 1924, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1924:

Barrie 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.