Baby names of 1887

Mary and John topped the lists in 1887, out of 247,391 births recorded across 2,215 different names. That is 3.1% fewer than the 1886 files hold.

← 1886 All years 1888 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	9,888
2	Anna	4,227
3	Elizabeth	2,681
4	Emma	2,647
5	Margaret	2,419
6	Minnie	2,215
7	Bertha	2,037
8	Clara	1,984
9	Florence	1,964
10	Ida	1,929
11	Ethel	1,907
12	Annie	1,844
13	Bessie	1,838
14	Alice	1,819
15	Grace	1,692
16	Ella	1,521
17	Martha	1,504
18	Mabel	1,494
19	Nellie	1,457
20	Sarah	1,436
21	Helen	1,405
22	Laura	1,364
23	Carrie	1,344
24	Edna	1,339
25	Pearl	1,316

All 200 girls’ names of 1887 (1,306 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	8,110
2	William	7,470
3	James	4,767
4	George	4,284
5	Charles	4,031
6	Frank	2,883
7	Joseph	2,456
8	Henry	2,228
9	Thomas	2,151
10	Robert	2,125
10	Edward	2,125
12	Harry	2,057
13	Walter	1,704
14	Arthur	1,489
15	Fred	1,454
16	Albert	1,294
17	Clarence	892
18	Samuel	802
19	Louis	791
20	Roy	726
21	Joe	685
22	David	673
23	Ernest	653
24	Charlie	642
25	Richard	622

All 200 boys’ names of 1887 (1,067 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1886:

Ossie #1,108 → #537 +571
Albertine #1,108 → #586 +522
Grayce #1,108 → #633 +475
Berenice #1,108 → #661 +447
Rosalia #1,108 → #661 +447
Elfrieda #1,108 → #661 +447
Honora #1,108 → #661 +447
Mammie #993 → #560 +433

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1886:

Carey #959 → #420 +539
Santiago #959 → #438 +521
Roderick #959 → #488 +471
Annie #959 → #488 +471
Morton #845 → #392 +453
Merrill #959 → #516 +443
Bruno #959 → #516 +443
Bennett #845 → #409 +436

Annie is here because the boys’ 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 1887, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1887:

Verlie 13
Gunda 10
Audra 9
Orelia 9
Lurline 8
Opha 8
Carlota 8
Wealthy 7
Nonnie 7
Nadine 7

First recorded in 1887, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1887:

Myles 11
Irl 10
Benson 9
Armond 8
Frazier 8
Grady 7
Alfredo 7
Ethelbert 6
Selmer 6
Gilman 6

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.