Baby names of 1886

Mary and John topped the lists in 1886, out of 255,316 births recorded across 2,225 different names. That is 6.0% more than the 1885 files hold.

← 1885 All years 1887 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	9,889
2	Anna	4,283
3	Emma	2,764
4	Elizabeth	2,680
5	Minnie	2,372
6	Margaret	2,275
7	Ida	2,049
8	Bertha	2,001
9	Clara	1,916
10	Florence	1,860
11	Alice	1,811
12	Bessie	1,791
13	Annie	1,765
14	Grace	1,723
15	Ethel	1,699
16	Sarah	1,569
17	Nellie	1,492
18	Martha	1,491
19	Ella	1,464
20	Mabel	1,422
21	Carrie	1,396
22	Laura	1,372
23	Edna	1,314
24	Lillian	1,282
25	Helen	1,267

All 200 girls’ names of 1886 (1,282 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	9,026
2	William	8,252
3	James	5,355
4	George	4,671
5	Charles	4,533
6	Frank	3,127
7	Joseph	2,594
8	Robert	2,443
9	Henry	2,404
10	Thomas	2,337
11	Edward	2,312
12	Harry	2,257
13	Walter	1,880
14	Arthur	1,656
15	Fred	1,599
16	Albert	1,488
17	Clarence	995
18	Samuel	870
19	Louis	846
20	Roy	767
21	Joe	759
22	Charlie	723
23	Richard	720
24	David	674
25	Ernest	668

All 200 boys’ names of 1886 (1,110 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1885:

Felicia #1,047 → #606 +441
Fronie #1,047 → #633 +414
Arminda #1,047 → #633 +414
Zettie #1,047 → #657 +390
Vergie #921 → #556 +365
Edward #1,047 → #693 +354
Osa #1,047 → #693 +354
Gretchen #1,047 → #693 +354

Edward 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 1885:

Thornton #936 → #431 +505
Oswald #936 → #451 +485
Evans #936 → #491 +445
Grace #936 → #540 +396
Abel #836 → #451 +385
Clara #836 → #470 +366
Willian #936 → #578 +358
Lionel #936 → #578 +358

Grace and Clara 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.

First recorded in 1886, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1886:

Manuelita 10
Ima 9
Hertha 8
Melanie 8
Clytie 8
Sigrid 8
Metha 8
Isla 7
Hilah 7
Rubye 7

First recorded in 1886, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1886:

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.