Baby names of 1934

Mary and Robert topped the lists in 1934, out of 2,076,821 births recorded across 8,190 different names. That is 3.9% more than the 1933 files hold. About 350,000 of them are alive today.

← 1933 All years 1935 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	56,929
2	Betty	31,089
3	Barbara	29,239
4	Shirley	22,841
5	Dorothy	21,281
6	Patricia	20,844
7	Joan	19,465
8	Margaret	15,144
9	Helen	14,100
10	Nancy	13,520
11	Doris	11,627
12	Joyce	11,459
13	Ruth	10,565
14	Carol	10,273
15	Virginia	10,002
16	Jean	9,718
17	Marilyn	9,382
18	Elizabeth	9,346
19	Frances	9,206
20	Lois	8,387
21	Janet	8,071
22	Beverly	7,886
23	Donna	7,870
24	Norma	7,788
25	Alice	7,784

All 200 girls’ names of 1934 (4,973 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Robert	55,843
2	James	54,270
3	John	46,743
4	William	40,175
5	Richard	33,167
6	Donald	30,408
7	Charles	29,790
8	George	18,500
9	Thomas	17,373
10	Joseph	17,111
11	Ronald	14,088
12	David	14,003
13	Edward	13,917
14	Paul	12,196
15	Kenneth	11,800
16	Frank	10,640
17	Jack	9,985
18	Harold	9,926
19	Raymond	9,588
20	Billy	9,562
21	Walter	8,092
22	Gerald	7,816
23	Bobby	7,532
24	Eugene	7,145
25	Jerry	7,134

All 200 boys’ names of 1934 (4,205 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1933:

Luann #1,442 → #871 +571
Alison #1,442 → #973 +469
Golda #1,364 → #925 +439
Ronald #1,244 → #894 +350
Gale #1,102 → #756 +346
Pearlene #1,197 → #875 +322
Marylee #1,289 → #973 +316
Laurie #1,085 → #794 +291

Ronald 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 1933:

Lanny #1,361 → #615 +746
Kerry #1,586 → #956 +630
Marland #1,456 → #836 +620
Kirk #1,202 → #798 +404
Valentin #1,281 → #931 +350
Judge #1,202 → #853 +349
Estel #1,094 → #792 +302
Ron #1,051 → #762 +289

First recorded in 1934, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1934:

Mikell 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 1934, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1934:

Shelvie 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.