May — #1350 US girls' name

What the Data Says About May

The Social Security Administration has registered 49,216 babies named May between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a girl's name, May currently holds the #1350 rank among girls for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1919, when 981 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that May performed strongest in the 1920s, accumulating 8,164 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, May shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in New York, which accounts for 3,465 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by California and Texas. In total, SSA state-level files list May in 49 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for May in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 49,216 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.