Baby names of 1896

Mary and John topped the lists in 1896, out of 357,483 births recorded across 2,839 different names. That is 1.8% more than the 1895 files hold.

← 1895 All years 1897 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	13,811
2	Anna	5,860
3	Helen	4,392
4	Margaret	4,050
5	Ruth	3,905
6	Ethel	3,502
7	Elizabeth	3,471
8	Florence	3,323
9	Marie	3,087
10	Emma	2,872
11	Lillian	2,702
12	Alice	2,651
13	Edna	2,604
14	Clara	2,582
15	Bertha	2,565
16	Minnie	2,530
17	Grace	2,485
18	Bessie	2,435
19	Annie	2,358
20	Rose	2,341
21	Mabel	2,283
22	Hazel	2,226
23	Gertrude	2,221
24	Ida	2,159
25	Pearl	2,101

All 200 girls’ names of 1896 (1,825 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	8,138
2	William	7,747
3	James	5,206
4	George	4,286
5	Charles	3,639
6	Joseph	3,051
7	Frank	2,845
8	Robert	2,719
9	Edward	2,296
10	Henry	2,183
11	Harry	2,091
12	Thomas	2,088
13	Walter	2,017
14	Arthur	1,821
15	Albert	1,434
16	Fred	1,393
17	Clarence	1,254
18	Willie	1,092
19	Roy	1,027
20	Paul	964
21	Earl	892
22	Louis	871
23	Harold	862
24	Raymond	859
25	Carl	852

All 200 boys’ names of 1896 (1,266 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1895:

Jeanie #1,592 → #843 +749
Vernice #1,426 → #728 +698
Buena #1,592 → #903 +689
Odell #1,592 → #903 +689
Lavenia #1,592 → #950 +642
Vicie #1,592 → #950 +642
Albertina #1,592 → #950 +642
Bernetta #1,592 → #950 +642

Odell 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 1895:

Hobert #795 → #262 +533
Cicero #1,079 → #551 +528
Earley #1,079 → #551 +528
Tomas #978 → #462 +516
Bryant #872 → #380 +492
Weldon #1,079 → #592 +487
Justin #978 → #500 +478
Jennings #738 → #290 +448

First recorded in 1896, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1896:

First recorded in 1896, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1896:

Hazen 11
Silver 10
Rayford 8
Virgel 8
Aloys 7
Wardell 7
Offie 7
Estle 6
Curry 6
Rayfield 6

Silver 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.

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.