Baby names of 1953

Mary and Robert topped the lists in 1953, out of 3,853,600 births recorded across 9,753 different names. That is 1.5% more than the 1952 files hold. About 2.7 million of them are alive today.

← 1952 All years 1954 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	64,389
2	Linda	61,281
3	Deborah	52,199
4	Patricia	51,019
5	Susan	44,297
6	Barbara	38,473
7	Debra	36,856
8	Nancy	30,620
9	Karen	29,858
10	Pamela	25,760
11	Sandra	25,500
12	Cynthia	25,140
13	Donna	24,227
14	Kathleen	23,731
15	Sharon	23,040
16	Carol	22,290
17	Diane	21,351
18	Brenda	20,122
19	Janet	17,771
20	Margaret	16,195
21	Elizabeth	16,099
22	Janice	14,627
23	Kathy	13,400
24	Rebecca	12,959
25	Carolyn	12,919

All 200 girls’ names of 1953 (6,497 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Robert	86,243
2	James	86,066
3	Michael	84,198
4	John	80,165
5	David	76,119
6	William	61,829
7	Richard	58,389
8	Thomas	47,008
9	Charles	38,421
10	Gary	36,967
11	Steven	33,721
12	Mark	29,341
13	Joseph	29,269
14	Donald	28,361
15	Ronald	27,713
16	Paul	25,509
17	Kenneth	25,507
18	Larry	25,208
19	Dennis	23,658
20	Daniel	23,498
21	Stephen	21,807
22	George	19,176
23	Edward	18,984
24	Gregory	16,160
25	Jeffrey	15,949

All 200 boys’ names of 1953 (4,341 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1952:

Enola #3,201 → #948 +2,253
Lu #1,368 → #483 +885
Joni #1,046 → #297 +749
Brooke #1,351 → #798 +553
Lorri #1,430 → #899 +531
Louann #1,022 → #518 +504
Cindi #1,250 → #760 +490
Luann #616 → #229 +387

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1952:

Faron #2,251 → #975 +1,276
Shane #1,213 → #519 +694
Enrico #1,517 → #989 +528
Blaise #1,430 → #989 +441
Robbin #1,268 → #839 +429
Mariano #1,323 → #950 +373
Evans #1,297 → #926 +371
Arvin #1,268 → #926 +342

Robbin 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 1953, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1953:

Trenace 32
Barbi 14
Angeli 14
Lezli 12
Tenley 12
Taryn 12
Judalon 11
Pier 11
Joa 10
Shermane 10

Joa 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 1953, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1953:

Caster 21
Dieter 11
Kane 10
Duan 9
Darryal 8
Audwin 8
Credell 7
Sky 7
Larrey 7
Shmuel 7

Sky 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.