Baby names of 1960

Mary and David topped the lists in 1960, out of 4,154,261 births recorded across 10,752 different names. That is under 0.1% fewer than the 1959 files hold. About 3.3 million of them are alive today.

← 1959 All years 1961 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	51,472
2	Susan	39,208
3	Linda	37,316
4	Karen	36,378
5	Donna	34,138
6	Lisa	33,693
7	Patricia	32,113
8	Debra	26,732
9	Cynthia	26,706
10	Deborah	25,266
11	Sandra	24,572
12	Barbara	24,454
13	Brenda	23,963
14	Pamela	22,092
15	Nancy	21,891
16	Sharon	20,414
17	Cheryl	19,120
18	Elizabeth	18,859
19	Teresa	18,839
20	Lori	18,690
21	Kathy	18,478
22	Diane	17,909
23	Carol	17,463
24	Debbie	17,067
25	Laura	17,060

All 200 girls’ names of 1960 (7,332 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	David	85,929
2	Michael	84,153
3	James	76,815
4	John	76,096
5	Robert	72,357
6	Mark	58,727
7	William	49,361
8	Richard	43,553
9	Thomas	39,278
10	Steven	33,878
11	Timothy	30,498
12	Joseph	29,749
13	Charles	29,677
14	Jeffrey	28,841
15	Kevin	28,400
16	Kenneth	27,701
17	Daniel	25,945
18	Paul	25,642
19	Donald	22,744
20	Brian	22,000
21	Ronald	21,714
22	Gary	21,693
23	Scott	21,606
24	Gregory	20,304
25	Anthony	19,499

All 200 boys’ names of 1960 (4,598 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1959:

Lisha #2,395 → #597 +1,798
Elana #2,108 → #885 +1,223
Leisha #1,537 → #870 +667
Misty #1,214 → #701 +513
Loriann #1,396 → #934 +462
Dedra #1,348 → #939 +409
Simone #1,036 → #630 +406
Alesia #895 → #512 +383

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1959:

Stephon #3,988 → #927 +3,061
Kennedy #1,759 → #720 +1,039
Darryle #1,416 → #927 +489
Garret #1,360 → #981 +379
Darryll #1,324 → #951 +373
Truman #1,247 → #905 +342
Darin #776 → #448 +328
Regan #1,302 → #996 +306

Kennedy and Regan 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 1960, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1960:

Leshia 76
Chantay 67
Devy 27
Periann 21
Jordana 19
Farah 19
Lajeune 17
Kileen 16
Tiki 15
Leasha 14

First recorded in 1960, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1960:

Cully 31
Stefon 20
Rydell 17
Steffon 16
Andamo 15
Stephone 12
Christropher 10
Labaron 10
Mehmet 9
Arnez 9

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.