SSA national file by year
Baby Names by Year
Every year on record, from 1880 to 2025, the exact names that topped the charts the year you, your parents, or your child were born, with the annual rankings drawn straight from Social Security Administration birth data.
- 145
- Years on file
- 1957
- Peak birth year
- 1880–2025
- Range
- 375M
- Named births
A birth year is the most personal way into the data. According to the U.S. Social Security Administration, the national file spans 146 years and more than 375 million named births between 1880 and 2025, and each individual year carries its own ranked list of the names parents actually chose. Pick a year below to see the names that defined it and how they moved from the year before, or read the methodology for how early-century registration affects the oldest years.
Recorded named births by decade
Annual SSA totals roll up into the post-war peak and a gentler modern plateau (1880s–2020s)
- 1880s 2,408,091
1880s
2,408,091 births
- 1890s 3,362,508
1890s
3,362,508 births
- 1900s 4,285,123
1900s
4,285,123 births
- 1910s 14,831,446
1910s
14,831,446 births
- 1920s
1920s
22,972,053 births
- 1930s
1930s
21,229,562 births
- 1940s
1940s
29,371,685 births
- 1950s
1950s
39,451,512 births
- 1960s
1960s
37,527,798 births
- 1970s
1970s
31,968,338 births
- 1980s
1980s
35,634,438 births
- 1990s
1990s
37,485,138 births
- 2000s
2000s
38,437,096 births
- 2010s
2010s
36,304,973 births
- 2020s
2020s
20,092,686 births
What this shows Year pages sit inside this curve: the boom decades pack the highest annual volumes, while the earliest years are thinner partly because registration in the early 1900s was incomplete, not because fewer names existed.
Browse every year
Grouped by decade. Select any year for its full name rankings and year-over-year shifts.
Reading a single year
The interesting question on a year page is rarely just “what was number one.” It is how fast the list was changing: in stable eras the top names barely move from one year to the next, while around cultural inflection points, a hit film, a public figure, a sharp generational shift, a name can leap dozens of ranks in a single year. The year-over-year view is built to surface exactly those jumps.
Remember that the oldest years undercount. Birth registration was not universal in the United States until the 1930s, so a name’s pre-war totals reflect both its real popularity and how completely births were being recorded at the time. Every figure shown is taken straight from the federal file.
Frequently asked questions
Which year had the most recorded births?
1957 recorded the most named births on the SSA file, with 4,202,087 - a peak of the post-war baby boom, when annual U.S. birth volume was at its highest.
How far back does year-by-year name data go?
The Social Security Administration’s national file begins in 1880 and runs through 2025-146 individual years, each with its own ranked list of boys and girls names.
Why do older years show fewer names?
Two reasons: the SSA withholds any name used fewer than five times in a year for privacy, and birth registration was less complete in the early 1900s. Year totals before roughly 1940 undercount actual births, so treat early figures as a floor, not a census.
What can I see on a single year’s page?
Each year page ranks that year’s most popular boys and girls names, shows how the leaders shifted from the year before, and links into the surrounding decade so you can place the year in its longer trend.