Baby names of 1901

Mary and John topped the lists in 1901, out of 345,812 births recorded across 2,901 different names. That is 23.2% fewer than the 1900 files hold.

← 1900 All years 1902 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	13,136
2	Helen	5,247
3	Anna	4,923
4	Margaret	4,424
5	Ruth	3,974
6	Elizabeth	3,216
7	Marie	3,157
8	Florence	3,131
9	Ethel	3,067
10	Lillian	2,681
11	Gladys	2,676
12	Alice	2,562
13	Edna	2,488
14	Mildred	2,424
15	Grace	2,398
16	Annie	2,396
17	Emma	2,374
18	Clara	2,319
19	Bertha	2,257
20	Rose	2,212
21	Bessie	2,183
22	Dorothy	2,173
23	Mabel	2,097
23	Hazel	2,097
25	Frances	2,071

All 200 girls’ names of 1901 (1,943 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	6,900
2	William	5,990
3	James	4,735
4	George	3,609
5	Charles	3,049
6	Joseph	2,766
7	Robert	2,543
8	Frank	2,402
9	Edward	1,917
10	Henry	1,870
11	Thomas	1,820
12	Walter	1,718
13	Harry	1,594
14	Arthur	1,329
15	Albert	1,317
16	Willie	1,294
17	Clarence	1,196
18	Fred	1,133
19	Paul	924
20	Roy	917
21	Harold	915
22	Raymond	888
23	Earl	818
24	Carl	817
25	Louis	797

All 200 boys’ names of 1901 (1,210 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1900:

Dellie #1,932 → #881 +1,051
Oneta #1,932 → #961 +971
Trula #1,723 → #918 +805
Dannie #1,723 → #961 +762
Thea #1,561 → #857 +704
Jeffie #1,561 → #881 +680
Lassie #1,431 → #881 +550
Nolia #1,431 → #918 +513

Dannie 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 1900:

Andres #1,310 → #559 +751
Ellwood #1,310 → #596 +714
Kermit #1,162 → #466 +696
Julia #1,162 → #487 +675
Kirk #1,310 → #637 +673
Ashley #1,310 → #683 +627
Jones #1,162 → #536 +626
Augusta #1,162 → #559 +603

Julia, Ashley and Augusta 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 1901, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1901:

First recorded in 1901, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1901:

Eino 9
Pate 7
Esco 7
Nute 6
Erland 6
Adron 6
Arland 6
Marc 6
Carman 5
Rosser 5

Carman 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.