Top Baby Names in Minnesota, 1940s — Most Popular Boys & Girls Names

What the Data Says About the 1940s in Minnesota

During the 1940s (1940–1949), the Social Security Administration recorded 391,602 births across the top 50 boy and top 50 girl names in Minnesota. The decade's leading boy name was James with 15,251 births, while Mary was the top girl name with 14,493 births. The top 50 boys in this decade collectively accounted for 211,324 births versus 180,278 for the top 50 girls — a common SSA pattern in which the boy-name pool is more concentrated among fewer high-frequency choices. These totals represent only names appearing five or more times per year in Minnesota; rarer names fall below the SSA's privacy-disclosure threshold and are excluded.

The 1940s sits within a specific cultural window of U.S. naming history. Pre-1950 decades like the 1940s were characterized by strong traditional and biblical naming conventions, with a small cluster of dominant names (John, William, Mary, Elizabeth) capturing a disproportionate share of births. James and Mary leading Minnesota during this window reflects how regional preferences interact with broader national trends.

Decade totals are computed by summing SSA state-year records for Minnesota across all ten years of the 1940s. Because the SSA suppresses any name with fewer than five annual occurrences in a state, the true number of unique names given in Minnesota during this decade is larger than what this page lists. The dataset also treats every spelling as a separate name — for example, Kayla and Kaylah are tracked independently — so combined-spelling totals would shift the rankings somewhat. This page is provided for informational and research purposes and does not constitute naming, legal, or genealogical advice.