US baby names: the 1910s

Every American decade leaves its mark on the registry books, and the 1910s are no exception. In the Social Security Administration's public records, Mary led among girls with 478,636 babies registered over the decade, and John came first among boys with 376,311. In all, the decade added up to 8,156,259 girl registrations and 6,675,187 boy registrations; the tables below list the 100 most common names of each sex, with the official counts.

Girls' top 100 of the 1910s

Boys' top 100 of the 1910s

The picture of the 1910s

Against the previous decade, 5 names debuted in the girls' top 20: Virginia, Evelyn, Irene, Louise and Catherine; on the boys' side, the 3 newcomers were Richard, Raymond and Donald.

Geraldine made the biggest climb among girls, from rank 189 to 94; Wayne made the biggest climb among boys, from rank 168 to 98. Rita is the most distinctive girls' name of the 1910s: it reached rank 74 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names; on the other side, Woodrow is the most distinctive boys' name of the 1910s: it reached rank 67 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names.

The 10 most common girls' names covered 22.8% of all girls registered, up from 20.0% in the previous decade; for boys, the top 10 accounted for 30.8%, down from 32.6% in the previous decade.

Compare with the 1900s, when Mary and John led, and with the 1920s, which crowned Mary and Robert. The archive with every decade shows the whole timeline at once.

Source: Social Security Administration, public data. The series comes from Social Security number applications in the United States and starts in 1880; names with fewer than 5 occurrences in a year are excluded for privacy. Snapshot of 2026-07-10.

Last updated: 2026-07-13 · Methodology and sources