Baby names of 1904
Mary and John topped the lists in 1904, out of 403,484 births recorded across 3,251 different names. That is 5.8% more than the 1903 files hold.
Girls
| # | Name | Births |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mary | 14,961 |
| 2 | Helen | 6,488 |
| 3 | Anna | 5,330 |
| 4 | Margaret | 5,302 |
| 5 | Ruth | 4,900 |
| 6 | Elizabeth | 3,833 |
| 7 | Marie | 3,595 |
| 8 | Florence | 3,572 |
| 9 | Mildred | 3,525 |
| 10 | Dorothy | 3,477 |
| 11 | Ethel | 3,296 |
| 12 | Lillian | 3,139 |
| 13 | Alice | 3,131 |
| 14 | Gladys | 2,976 |
| 15 | Edna | 2,762 |
| 16 | Frances | 2,657 |
| 17 | Annie | 2,631 |
| 17 | Rose | 2,631 |
| 19 | Grace | 2,513 |
| 20 | Bertha | 2,363 |
| 21 | Bessie | 2,340 |
| 22 | Emma | 2,312 |
| 23 | Hazel | 2,301 |
| 24 | Clara | 2,281 |
| 25 | Gertrude | 2,269 |
All 200 girls’ names of 1904 (2,165 recorded)
Boys
| # | Name | Births |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | John | 8,108 |
| 2 | William | 6,416 |
| 3 | James | 5,855 |
| 4 | George | 4,219 |
| 5 | Robert | 3,414 |
| 6 | Charles | 3,406 |
| 7 | Joseph | 3,291 |
| 8 | Frank | 2,799 |
| 9 | Edward | 2,335 |
| 10 | Henry | 2,085 |
| 11 | Thomas | 2,057 |
| 12 | Walter | 1,873 |
| 13 | Harry | 1,722 |
| 14 | Willie | 1,675 |
| 15 | Arthur | 1,495 |
| 16 | Albert | 1,453 |
| 17 | Clarence | 1,310 |
| 18 | Fred | 1,223 |
| 19 | Paul | 1,194 |
| 20 | Harold | 1,186 |
| 21 | Roy | 1,123 |
| 22 | Raymond | 1,093 |
| 23 | Joe | 959 |
| 24 | Richard | 957 |
| 25 | Carl | 953 |
All 200 boys’ names of 1904 (1,395 recorded)
Biggest climbers, girls
Names that gained the most ground on 1903:
- Edris #1,792 → #910 +882
- Electa #1,592 → #710 +882
- Lannie #1,792 → #965 +827
- Madalyn #1,792 → #965 +827
- Amber #1,440 → #640 +800
- Anona #1,440 → #755 +685
- Rozella #1,440 → #805 +635
- Nila #1,592 → #965 +627
Lannie 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 1903:
First recorded in 1904, girls
Names the SSA had never published before 1904:
First recorded in 1904, boys
Names the SSA had never published before 1904:
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.