Baby names of 1945

Mary and James topped the lists in 1945, out of 2,652,945 births recorded across 8,080 different names. That is 1.4% fewer than the 1944 files hold. About 1.4 million of them are alive today.

← 1944 All years 1946 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	59,278
2	Linda	41,465
3	Barbara	38,273
4	Patricia	35,844
5	Carol	30,389
6	Sandra	24,700
7	Nancy	21,456
8	Sharon	20,838
9	Judith	20,192
10	Susan	19,222
11	Betty	18,387
12	Carolyn	17,244
13	Judy	17,001
14	Shirley	16,150
15	Margaret	15,685
16	Karen	15,680
17	Donna	15,397
18	Joyce	13,950
19	Kathleen	13,802
20	Janet	12,326
21	Dorothy	12,323
22	Diane	12,223
23	Gloria	11,037
24	Janice	10,781
25	Joan	10,394

All 200 girls’ names of 1945 (5,242 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	James	74,464
2	Robert	69,947
3	John	66,117
4	William	50,218
5	Richard	46,046
6	David	37,110
7	Charles	32,469
8	Thomas	31,874
9	Michael	29,902
10	Ronald	23,665
11	Larry	22,824
12	Donald	22,138
13	Gary	21,345
14	Joseph	20,823
15	George	19,327
16	Kenneth	18,096
17	Paul	16,995
18	Edward	15,870
19	Dennis	14,990
20	Jerry	14,704
21	Frank	10,874
22	Roger	10,571
23	Raymond	9,858
24	Daniel	9,708
25	Gerald	8,857

All 200 boys’ names of 1945 (3,783 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1944:

Lauren #1,153 → #354 +799
Amber #1,661 → #954 +707
Laureen #1,315 → #667 +648
Deidre #1,609 → #979 +630
Candice #1,364 → #741 +623
Leslee #1,545 → #954 +591
Aleta #1,293 → #737 +556
Erica #1,364 → #941 +423

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1944:

Delano #1,085 → #558 +527
Dane #1,235 → #736 +499
Eusebio #1,328 → #943 +385
Erick #1,235 → #864 +371
Gerardo #1,282 → #971 +311
Rolf #1,120 → #837 +283
Franklyn #974 → #692 +282
Leopoldo #1,135 → #864 +271

First recorded in 1945, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1945:

Sherida 26
Allida 23
Allyson 18
Kristan 17
Ronnee 15
Kandace 13
Jaynee 13
Marisela 12
Cheryn 12
Lauran 11

First recorded in 1945, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1945:

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.