Baby names of 1932

Mary and Robert topped the lists in 1932, out of 2,111,305 births recorded across 8,343 different names. That is 0.3% more than the 1931 files hold. About 241,000 of them are alive today.

← 1931 All years 1933 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	59,883
2	Betty	34,420
3	Barbara	26,318
4	Dorothy	24,974
5	Joan	21,044
6	Patricia	17,992
7	Margaret	16,556
8	Helen	16,376
9	Shirley	14,476
10	Doris	12,910
11	Ruth	12,257
12	Joyce	11,362
13	Nancy	10,948
14	Virginia	10,755
15	Jean	10,670
16	Marilyn	10,567
17	Elizabeth	9,999
18	Dolores	9,630
19	Frances	9,552
20	Lois	9,519
21	Alice	8,537
22	Norma	8,406
23	Evelyn	7,958
24	Anna	7,924
25	Gloria	7,813

All 200 girls’ names of 1932 (5,098 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Robert	59,268
2	James	51,930
3	John	48,624
4	William	42,124
5	Richard	31,809
6	Charles	31,092
7	Donald	29,794
8	George	20,439
9	Joseph	18,566
10	Thomas	16,834
11	Edward	15,191
12	David	12,139
13	Paul	12,066
14	Kenneth	11,742
15	Frank	11,497
16	Ronald	11,143
17	Jack	10,716
18	Harold	10,433
19	Raymond	10,346
20	Billy	9,436
21	Walter	8,667
22	Eugene	8,046
23	Henry	7,470
24	Gerald	7,347
25	Arthur	6,916

All 200 boys’ names of 1932 (4,284 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1931:

Dian #1,876 → #913 +963
Carleen #1,394 → #875 +519
Jimmy #1,336 → #979 +357
Letty #1,287 → #940 +347
Letitia #1,148 → #808 +340
Dee #1,227 → #905 +322
Sydney #1,104 → #801 +303
Augustine #1,199 → #899 +300

Jimmy and Augustine 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 1931:

Delano #3,095 → #677 +2,418
Garner #1,643 → #674 +969
Ronny #1,770 → #902 +868
Darryl #1,693 → #980 +713
Marc #1,589 → #980 +609
Gerold #1,217 → #821 +396
Lane #1,253 → #862 +391
Alonza #1,333 → #963 +370

First recorded in 1932, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1932:

Haroldean 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.

First recorded in 1932, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1932:

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.