Baby names of 1978

Jennifer and Michael topped the lists in 1978, out of 3,173,696 births recorded across 16,629 different names. That is under 0.1% fewer than the 1977 files hold. About 3 million of them are alive today.

← 1977 All years 1979 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Jennifer	56,314
2	Melissa	28,327
3	Jessica	26,102
4	Amy	23,213
5	Heather	22,270
6	Amanda	20,520
7	Angela	20,517
8	Sarah	19,976
9	Michelle	18,856
10	Nicole	17,279
11	Lisa	17,033
12	Kelly	16,976
13	Kimberly	16,879
14	Elizabeth	16,807
15	Christina	16,367
16	Stephanie	16,233
17	Rebecca	13,796
18	Crystal	12,594
19	Laura	11,240
20	Jamie	10,982
21	Erin	10,786
22	Shannon	10,598
23	Andrea	10,461
24	Mary	10,040
25	Rachel	9,802

All 200 girls’ names of 1978 (11,475 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Michael	67,127
2	Jason	51,600
3	Christopher	47,236
4	David	40,684
5	James	39,894
6	Matthew	34,282
7	John	34,014
8	Robert	33,374
9	Brian	29,432
10	Joseph	26,663
11	Daniel	26,441
12	Joshua	25,204
13	William	24,170
14	Ryan	21,322
15	Kevin	20,094
16	Eric	19,761
17	Timothy	19,597
18	Jeremy	19,509
19	Jeffrey	16,989
20	Anthony	16,808
21	Richard	16,734
22	Andrew	16,720
23	Thomas	16,481
24	Steven	16,390
25	Nicholas	16,342

All 200 boys’ names of 1978 (6,762 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1977:

Aja #4,652 → #412 +4,240
Kiley #2,606 → #619 +1,987
Kylee #2,838 → #887 +1,951
Winter #2,780 → #995 +1,785
Kylie #2,026 → #406 +1,620
Meghann #1,877 → #571 +1,306
Shavon #1,717 → #691 +1,026
Desirae #1,801 → #826 +975

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1977:

Dequan #4,164 → #927 +3,237
Nicholaus #1,367 → #741 +626
Nicklaus #1,515 → #898 +617
Zebulon #1,476 → #898 +578
Anwar #1,121 → #697 +424
Kenji #1,158 → #749 +409
Deshaun #1,335 → #932 +403
Johnpaul #1,289 → #886 +403

First recorded in 1978, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1978:

Enjoli 35
Katiria 31
Shavonn 26
Arnetia 26
Astria 24
Kushana 23
Sayward 22
Kearston 21
Chivon 21
Jaywana 20

First recorded in 1978, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1978:

Mychal 59
Jarian 23
Arien 17
Kene 12
Theus 11
Quarterrio 11
Jovany 11
Travolta 11
Zebulan 11
Kalief 10

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.