Baby names of 1935

Mary and Robert topped the lists in 1935, out of 2,089,928 births recorded across 8,084 different names. That is 0.6% more than the 1934 files hold. About 421,000 of them are alive today.

← 1934 All years 1936 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	55,076
2	Shirley	42,366
3	Barbara	30,698
4	Betty	28,674
5	Patricia	22,879
6	Dorothy	19,406
7	Joan	18,220
8	Margaret	14,727
9	Nancy	14,544
10	Helen	12,785
11	Carol	11,735
12	Joyce	11,368
13	Doris	10,604
14	Marilyn	10,418
15	Ruth	9,988
16	Virginia	9,867
17	Elizabeth	9,075
18	Jean	8,852
19	Frances	8,770
20	Beverly	7,992
21	Lois	7,990
22	Janet	7,856
23	Donna	7,793
24	Martha	7,621
25	Alice	7,443

All 200 girls’ names of 1935 (4,893 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Robert	56,527
2	James	55,005
3	John	47,509
4	William	40,204
5	Richard	33,946
6	Charles	29,983
7	Donald	29,674
8	George	18,564
9	Thomas	17,684
10	Joseph	17,181
11	David	15,663
12	Ronald	15,489
13	Edward	13,844
14	Paul	12,563
15	Kenneth	12,067
16	Frank	10,420
17	Raymond	9,564
18	Jack	9,438
19	Billy	9,241
20	Harold	9,170
21	Gerald	8,458
22	Jerry	8,452
23	Walter	7,816
24	Bobby	7,726
25	Joe	7,555

All 200 boys’ names of 1935 (4,146 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1934:

Norita #3,449 → #713 +2,736
Shelby #1,913 → #840 +1,073
Darla #1,344 → #672 +672
Shirleyann #1,292 → #896 +396
Loris #1,236 → #861 +375
Marla #1,292 → #937 +355
Shirlie #1,236 → #892 +344
Lidia #1,221 → #884 +337

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1934:

Darwyn #2,121 → #750 +1,371
Landon #1,608 → #930 +678
Stafford #1,658 → #980 +678
Lance #1,658 → #992 +666
Delwin #1,461 → #969 +492
Isadore #1,266 → #822 +444
Kerry #956 → #548 +408
Maria #1,357 → #980 +377

Maria 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 1935, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1935:

Treasure 16
Meris 15
Daneen 15
Danice 14
Nerita 14
Carilyn 13
Shelda 11
Monya 11
Rheeta 9
Rozann 9

First recorded in 1935, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1935:

Haile 11
Ronnald 9
Shaun 8
Deuel 8
Dizzy 8
Kip 8
Dinnis 7
Welbert 7
Lindol 6
Ravon 6

Haile 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.