Baby names of 1947

Linda and James topped the lists in 1947, out of 3,602,365 births recorded across 9,304 different names. That is 12.7% more than the 1946 files hold. About 2.1 million of them are alive today.

← 1946 All years 1948 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Linda	99,692
2	Mary	71,690
3	Patricia	51,278
4	Barbara	48,800
5	Sandra	34,779
6	Carol	33,543
7	Nancy	32,445
8	Susan	31,952
9	Sharon	28,533
10	Donna	23,517
11	Kathleen	22,095
12	Judith	21,996
13	Karen	21,648
14	Judy	21,037
15	Carolyn	20,742
16	Margaret	20,101
17	Betty	18,966
18	Diane	17,775
19	Shirley	17,648
20	Joyce	15,915
21	Brenda	15,830
22	Janice	15,409
23	Janet	15,236
24	Cheryl	13,890
25	Elizabeth	13,440

All 200 girls’ names of 1947 (6,104 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	James	94,767
2	Robert	91,655
3	John	88,324
4	William	67,002
5	Richard	58,532
6	David	57,810
7	Michael	50,506
8	Thomas	44,842
9	Charles	40,781
10	Larry	34,946
11	Ronald	34,899
12	Gary	30,029
13	Donald	28,260
14	Joseph	27,520
15	Kenneth	24,586
16	George	23,916
17	Dennis	23,686
18	Paul	22,796
19	Edward	20,539
20	Jerry	18,794
21	Stephen	15,328
22	Daniel	15,189
23	Frank	13,994
24	Steven	13,528
25	Roger	12,760

All 200 boys’ names of 1947 (4,266 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1946:

Michaele #1,276 → #859 +417
Carlotta #997 → #612 +385
Ricki #1,290 → #958 +332
Daria #1,220 → #920 +300
Ivy #1,087 → #797 +290
Jeanetta #1,192 → #920 +272
Trudi #1,121 → #875 +246
Mitzi #1,192 → #951 +241

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1946:

Brock #2,271 → #1,000 +1,271
Shawn #1,509 → #923 +586
Jed #1,475 → #975 +500
Jody #935 → #577 +358
Deryl #1,355 → #1,000 +355
Rory #1,157 → #805 +352
Frances #1,257 → #923 +334
Giles #1,257 → #968 +289

Jody and Frances 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.

First recorded in 1947, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1947:

Junellen 12
Georgeen 12
Meridy 12
Cyndia 11
Sherrlyn 11
Tamia 10
Melana 10
Chanda 10
Johnda 10
Tamela 10

First recorded in 1947, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1947:

Eliezer 11
Theartis 10
Cirildo 9
Tory 8
Bryn 8
Tyrell 7
Earnell 7
Rohn 7
Keno 7
Terald 7

Bryn 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.