US baby names: the 1930s

If you were born in the United States in the 1930s, what name would most likely sit on your birth certificate? In the Social Security Administration's public records, Mary led among girls with 573,000 babies registered over the decade, and Robert came first among boys with 590,810. In all, the decade added up to 10,663,028 girl registrations and 10,566,534 boy registrations; the tables below list the 100 most common names of each sex, with the official counts.

Girls' top 100 of the 1930s

Boys' top 100 of the 1930s

The picture of the 1930s

Against the previous decade, 7 names debuted in the girls' top 20: Patricia, Joan, Nancy, Carol, Joyce and Marilyn and 1 more; on the boys' side, the 3 newcomers were David, Ronald and Billy.

Janice made the biggest climb among girls, from rank 182 to 42; Larry made the biggest climb among boys, from rank 190 to 30. Judith is the most distinctive girls' name of the 1930s: it reached rank 40 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names; on the other side, Gary is the most distinctive boys' name of the 1930s: it reached rank 45 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names.

The 10 most common girls' names covered 22.9% of all girls registered, up from 22.7% in the previous decade; for boys, the top 10 accounted for 33.3%, up from 32.5% in the previous decade.

Compare with the 1920s, when Mary and Robert led, and with the 1940s, which crowned Mary and James. 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