Also available in: Português (Brasil)

US baby names: the 1970s

Every American decade leaves its mark on the registry books, and the 1970s are no exception. In the Social Security Administration's public records, Jennifer led among girls with 581,729 babies registered over the decade, and Michael came first among boys with 707,327. In all, the decade added up to 15,452,187 girl registrations and 16,516,151 boy registrations; the tables below list the 100 most common names of each sex, with the official counts.

Girls' top 100 of the 1970s

Boys' top 100 of the 1970s

The picture of the 1970s

Against the previous decade, 12 names debuted in the girls' top 20: Amy, Melissa, Angela, Heather, Stephanie and Nicole and 6 more; on the boys' side, the 3 newcomers were Jason, Matthew and Eric.

Amanda made the biggest climb among girls, from rank 199 to 17; Chad made the biggest climb among boys, from rank 173 to 30. Jessica is the most distinctive girls' name of the 1970s: it reached rank 11 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names; on the other side, Joshua is the most distinctive boys' name of the 1970s: it reached rank 24 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names.

The 10 most common girls' names covered 16.5% of all girls registered, up from 15.1% in the previous decade; for boys, the top 10 accounted for 25.5%, down from 28.5% in the previous decade.

Compare with the 1960s, when Lisa and Michael led, and with the 1980s, which crowned Jessica 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