US baby names: the 1960s

If you were born in the United States in the 1960s, what name would most likely sit on your birth certificate? In the Social Security Administration's public records, Lisa led among girls with 496,987 babies registered over the decade, and Michael came first among boys with 833,092. In all, the decade added up to 18,265,172 girl registrations and 19,262,626 boy registrations; the tables below list the 100 most common names of each sex, with the official counts.

Girls' top 100 of the 1960s

Boys' top 100 of the 1960s

The picture of the 1960s

Against the previous decade, 9 names debuted in the girls' top 20: Lisa, Kimberly, Michelle, Tammy, Lori and Laura and 3 more; on the boys' side, the 6 newcomers were Jeffrey, Timothy, Kevin, Scott, Brian and Christopher.

Tammy made the biggest climb among girls, from rank 140 to 13; Todd made the biggest climb among boys, from rank 161 to 31. Kelly is the most distinctive girls' name of the 1960s: it reached rank 30 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names; on the other side, Troy is the most distinctive boys' name of the 1960s: it reached rank 55 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names.

The 10 most common girls' names covered 15.1% of all girls registered, down from 21.3% in the previous decade; for boys, the top 10 accounted for 28.5%, down from 31.7% in the previous decade.

Compare with the 1950s, when Mary and James led, and with the 1970s, which crowned Jennifer and Michael. 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