Baby names of 1917

Mary and John topped the lists in 1917, out of 2,006,749 births recorded across 8,877 different names. That is 3.7% more than the 1916 files hold. About 450 of them are alive today.

← 1916 All years 1918 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	64,280
2	Helen	34,251
3	Dorothy	28,852
4	Margaret	25,560
5	Ruth	23,568
6	Mildred	16,256
7	Anna	15,160
8	Elizabeth	15,131
9	Frances	14,363
10	Virginia	14,261
11	Evelyn	12,532
12	Marie	11,813
13	Alice	10,990
14	Florence	10,538
15	Lillian	9,843
16	Rose	9,783
17	Irene	9,163
18	Catherine	8,689
19	Louise	8,584
20	Edna	8,422
21	Josephine	8,326
22	Martha	8,261
23	Gladys	8,075
24	Ethel	7,865
25	Doris	7,819

All 200 girls’ names of 1917 (5,310 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	John	51,852
2	William	42,422
3	James	37,337
4	Robert	35,220
5	Joseph	24,761
6	George	24,196
7	Charles	24,143
8	Edward	17,501
9	Frank	15,768
10	Thomas	12,611
11	Walter	12,582
12	Harold	11,194
13	Paul	11,156
14	Richard	10,914
15	Henry	10,696
16	Raymond	9,956
17	Arthur	9,282
18	Albert	9,157
19	Harry	8,856
20	Donald	8,729
21	Ralph	7,391
22	Jack	6,875
23	Louis	6,771
24	Carl	6,699
25	Clarence	6,587

All 200 boys’ names of 1917 (4,602 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1916:

Georgene #1,445 → #896 +549
Ottie #1,332 → #952 +380
Louis #1,298 → #933 +365
Valentine #1,298 → #964 +334
Harold #1,210 → #888 +322
Gertha #1,246 → #952 +294
Maryellen #1,189 → #904 +285
Malvina #1,147 → #866 +281

Louis, Valentine and Harold are here because the girls’ 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.

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1916:

Nicolas #1,304 → #784 +520
Hezekiah #1,415 → #946 +469
Hilliard #1,415 → #982 +433
Rayford #1,304 → #900 +404
Minoru #1,335 → #997 +338
Alec #1,072 → #749 +323
Wilfrid #1,206 → #884 +322
Ignacio #1,072 → #761 +311

First recorded in 1917, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1917:

Nerine 43
Nerene 11
Tonia 11
Alvada 11
Delsa 11
Miyeko 11
Chestina 11
Verlean 10
Toshie 10
Lutrelle 9

First recorded in 1917, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1917:

Delwyn 14
Galvin 11
Mcadoo 11
Osman 11
Toru 10
Bracy 10
Dolton 10
Claborn 10
Feliberto 9
Jafus 9

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.