Baby names of 1884

Mary and John topped the lists in 1884, out of 243,460 births recorded across 2,158 different names. That is 12.2% more than the 1883 files hold.

← 1883 All years 1885 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	9,217
2	Anna	3,860
3	Emma	2,587
4	Elizabeth	2,549
5	Minnie	2,243
6	Margaret	2,142
7	Ida	1,882
8	Clara	1,852
9	Bertha	1,789
10	Annie	1,739
11	Alice	1,732
12	Florence	1,570
13	Grace	1,525
14	Sarah	1,518
15	Bessie	1,451
16	Martha	1,443
17	Nellie	1,417
18	Ethel	1,386
19	Ella	1,374
20	Mabel	1,270
21	Laura	1,246
22	Carrie	1,245
23	Cora	1,244
24	Maude	1,225
25	Pearl	1,138

All 200 girls’ names of 1884 (1,172 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	9,388
2	William	8,897
3	James	5,693
4	George	4,961
5	Charles	4,802
6	Frank	3,218
7	Joseph	2,707
8	Thomas	2,572
9	Henry	2,474
10	Robert	2,468
11	Edward	2,439
12	Harry	2,323
13	Walter	1,902
14	Arthur	1,690
15	Fred	1,638
16	Albert	1,435
17	Samuel	945
18	Clarence	889
19	Louis	886
20	Grover	802
21	David	761
22	Joe	759
23	Richard	749
24	Charlie	746
25	Ernest	690

All 200 boys’ names of 1884 (1,125 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1883:

Belva #920 → #234 +686
Anner #920 → #556 +364
Nella #817 → #463 +354
Wilhelmine #920 → #583 +337
Zoa #920 → #583 +337
Guadalupe #920 → #583 +337
Nelia #920 → #583 +337
Bennie #817 → #501 +316

Bennie is here because the girls’ file records it: the SSA publishes every name given to five or more babies of one sex, and a rank is a position within that list. It is not a claim about whose name it is.

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1883:

Pierce #892 → #488 +404
Harlan #892 → #504 +388
Buck #892 → #520 +372
Noel #892 → #547 +345
Cleve #527 → #204 +323
Marcellus #892 → #570 +322
Oral #892 → #570 +322
Blaine #497 → #209 +288

First recorded in 1884, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1884:

Rubie 11
Crystal 11
Ruie 10
Pluma 10
Milly 10
Gennie 9
Cleva 9
Maxie 9
Vennie 9
Zettie 9

Maxie is here because the girls’ file records it: the SSA publishes every name given to five or more babies of one sex, and a rank is a position within that list. It is not a claim about whose name it is.

First recorded in 1884, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1884:

Oakley and Whitney are here because the boys’ file records them: the SSA publishes every name given to five or more babies of one sex, and a rank is a position within that list. It is not a claim about whose name it is.

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration national baby-name files. Names given to fewer than five babies in a year are not published, so the totals here run below the true number of births. How far below is not the same in every year: the files hold 201,484 births for 1880 and 3,315,343 for 2025, so a change from one year to the next in the early decades is partly a change in what the record covers.