Baby names of 1906

Mary and John topped the lists in 1906, out of 428,451 births recorded across 3,307 different names. That is 1.1% more than the 1905 files hold.

← 1905 All years 1907 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	16,370
2	Helen	7,176
3	Margaret	6,096
4	Anna	5,502
5	Ruth	5,140
6	Dorothy	4,326
7	Elizabeth	4,320
8	Alice	4,192
9	Mildred	3,873
10	Florence	3,691
11	Marie	3,690
12	Ethel	3,511
13	Lillian	3,293
14	Frances	3,026
15	Edna	3,011
16	Gladys	3,000
17	Rose	2,901
18	Annie	2,774
19	Grace	2,626
20	Irene	2,423
21	Bessie	2,396
22	Gertrude	2,375
23	Hazel	2,315
24	Louise	2,307
25	Bertha	2,302

All 200 girls’ names of 1906 (2,220 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	8,264
2	William	6,566
3	James	5,908
4	George	4,201
5	Robert	3,635
6	Charles	3,607
7	Joseph	3,527
8	Frank	2,798
9	Edward	2,398
10	Thomas	2,176
11	Henry	2,112
12	Walter	1,934
13	Willie	1,756
14	Harry	1,631
15	Arthur	1,486
16	Albert	1,469
17	Harold	1,330
18	Clarence	1,319
19	Paul	1,308
20	Fred	1,193
21	Raymond	1,133
22	Louis	1,101
23	Richard	1,084
24	Roy	1,024
25	Joe	1,020

All 200 boys’ names of 1906 (1,413 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1905:

Lavera #1,931 → #895 +1,036
Williemae #1,931 → #917 +1,014
Luberta #1,931 → #917 +1,014
Gregoria #1,696 → #845 +851
Evelyne #1,696 → #845 +851
Leonore #1,538 → #716 +822
Annamae #1,696 → #917 +779
Vlasta #1,696 → #965 +731

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1905:

Sheldon #1,233 → #568 +665
Rudy #1,091 → #523 +568
Mac #1,002 → #472 +530
Casey #1,233 → #709 +524
Rosario #1,233 → #709 +524
Llewellyn #1,233 → #709 +524
Roderick #1,233 → #709 +524
Norval #1,233 → #709 +524

Rosario 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 1906, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1906:

First recorded in 1906, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1906:

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.