Top Baby Names of the 1920s

What the Data Says About the 1920s

The Social Security Administration's 1920s national files cumulate 12,493,757 births across the top 50 boy and top 50 girl names for the decade. Robert led the boys with 576,375 births, while Mary led the girls with 701,756 births. The top 50 boys of the 1920s collectively captured 6,631,995 births versus 5,861,762 for the top 50 girls — the typical SSA pattern in which a narrower set of boy names dominates a wider share of total registrations. Names occurring fewer than five times in a given year are suppressed by SSA for privacy, so these totals represent only the public-disclosure portion of the decade's actual naming distribution.

The 1920s occupied a specific cultural moment in U.S. naming history. The early 20th century (1920s–1940s) saw biblical and traditional names dominate, with a small top-10 cluster capturing a large share of total births across all regions.

Decade totals on this page aggregate SSA national name-year records across all ten years of the 1920s. Because the SSA excludes names with fewer than five annual occurrences, the true number of unique names given during the 1920s is substantially higher than the top-50 lists shown here — particularly for rare and emerging names that never crossed the disclosure threshold. Each spelling is also tracked as a separate entry, so combined pools (e.g., Sophia + Sofia, Aiden + Ayden) would produce different rankings. This page is provided for informational and research purposes and does not constitute naming, legal, or genealogical advice.