Top Baby Names of the 1930s

What the Data Says About the 1930s

The Social Security Administration's 1930s national files cumulate 11,718,860 births across the top 50 boy and top 50 girl names for the decade. Robert led the boys with 590,799 births, while Mary led the girls with 572,997 births. The top 50 boys of the 1930s collectively captured 6,439,368 births versus 5,279,492 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 1930s 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 1930s. Because the SSA excludes names with fewer than five annual occurrences, the true number of unique names given during the 1930s 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.