Baby names of 1933

Mary and Robert topped the lists in 1933, out of 1,999,456 births recorded across 8,019 different names. That is 5.3% fewer than the 1932 files hold. About 281,000 of them are alive today.

← 1932 All years 1934 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	55,517
2	Betty	31,531
3	Barbara	26,949
4	Dorothy	22,054
5	Joan	19,294
6	Patricia	18,632
7	Margaret	15,241
8	Helen	14,644
9	Shirley	14,320
10	Doris	12,025
11	Nancy	11,869
12	Joyce	11,191
13	Ruth	11,136
14	Jean	9,966
15	Virginia	9,719
16	Marilyn	9,126
17	Elizabeth	9,016
18	Frances	8,883
19	Lois	8,655
20	Carol	8,220
21	Dolores	8,022
22	Alice	7,697
23	Norma	7,482
24	Donna	7,360
25	Janet	7,342

All 200 girls’ names of 1933 (4,858 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Robert	54,221
2	James	51,112
3	John	46,224
4	William	39,049
5	Richard	31,331
6	Charles	28,991
7	Donald	28,450
8	George	18,356
9	Joseph	17,162
10	Thomas	16,508
11	Edward	13,797
12	Ronald	12,061
13	David	12,026
14	Paul	11,854
15	Kenneth	11,410
16	Frank	10,962
17	Jack	9,838
18	Harold	9,543
19	Raymond	9,512
20	Billy	8,938
21	Walter	7,756
22	Gerald	7,422
23	Eugene	7,352
24	Henry	6,726
25	Arthur	6,525

All 200 boys’ names of 1933 (4,156 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1932:

Rheta #1,754 → #732 +1,022
Joellen #1,877 → #947 +930
Veola #1,568 → #985 +583
Sharlene #1,162 → #679 +483
Louetta #1,448 → #973 +475
Ginger #1,320 → #858 +462
Elissa #1,382 → #923 +459
Jerrie #1,162 → #834 +328

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1932:

Neville #1,548 → #995 +553
Cordell #1,286 → #885 +401
Hamilton #1,286 → #905 +381
Delano #677 → #302 +375
Jan #937 → #624 +313
Gonzalo #1,198 → #885 +313
Patricia #980 → #677 +303
Arlan #1,056 → #770 +286

Jan and Patricia 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 1933, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1933:

First recorded in 1933, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1933:

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.