Baby names of 1930

Mary and Robert topped the lists in 1930, out of 2,223,305 births recorded across 8,712 different names. That is 1.4% more than the 1929 files hold. About 156,000 of them are alive today.

← 1929 All years 1931 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	64,153
2	Betty	38,240
3	Dorothy	30,411
4	Helen	19,913
5	Margaret	18,350
6	Barbara	18,279
7	Patricia	15,751
8	Joan	15,478
9	Doris	15,464
10	Ruth	14,942
11	Shirley	14,775
12	Virginia	13,197
13	Dolores	12,842
14	Jean	11,986
15	Elizabeth	10,995
16	Frances	10,644
17	Lois	10,114
18	Joyce	9,658
19	Evelyn	9,536
20	Alice	9,516
21	Mildred	9,356
22	Marilyn	9,288
23	Anna	9,081
24	Nancy	9,068
25	Norma	8,511

All 200 girls’ names of 1930 (5,247 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Robert	62,153
2	James	53,957
3	John	52,447
4	William	47,271
5	Richard	32,187
6	Charles	31,867
7	Donald	29,052
8	George	22,788
9	Joseph	20,981
10	Edward	17,352
11	Thomas	17,008
12	Paul	12,955
13	Frank	12,535
14	Jack	12,430
15	David	12,275
16	Raymond	11,714
17	Kenneth	11,705
18	Harold	11,660
19	Walter	9,731
20	Billy	9,285
21	Eugene	9,029
22	Henry	8,594
23	Arthur	8,284
24	Albert	7,950
25	Ralph	7,634

All 200 boys’ names of 1930 (4,542 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1929:

Claudette #1,642 → #941 +701
Ardeth #1,212 → #629 +583
Julianne #1,339 → #894 +445
Sonja #1,223 → #847 +376
Armida #1,174 → #800 +374
Marylin #1,137 → #847 +290
Zula #1,137 → #847 +290
Margo #1,223 → #937 +286

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1929:

Derl #3,959 → #865 +3,094
Clive #1,378 → #958 +420
Farris #1,272 → #892 +380
Earlie #1,296 → #928 +368
Winton #1,272 → #915 +357
Vernie #1,111 → #782 +329
Thornton #1,312 → #990 +322
Arlan #1,214 → #915 +299

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 1930, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1930:

Laquita 68
Joretta 33
Elanda 19
Jeralyn 13
Alana 12
Janece 11
Allana 10
Alanna 9
Sanda 9
Beverely 9

First recorded in 1930, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1930:

Carlen and Choyce 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.

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.