Baby names of 1936

Mary and Robert topped the lists in 1936, out of 2,077,595 births recorded across 7,904 different names. That is 0.6% fewer than the 1935 files hold. About 487,000 of them are alive today.

← 1935 All years 1937 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	54,377
2	Shirley	35,161
3	Barbara	31,682
4	Betty	25,868
5	Patricia	23,916
6	Dorothy	17,666
7	Joan	17,072
8	Nancy	16,755
9	Margaret	14,596
10	Carol	14,520
11	Helen	12,234
12	Joyce	11,988
13	Marilyn	11,064
14	Virginia	9,650
15	Doris	9,226
16	Ruth	9,217
17	Beverly	8,901
18	Elizabeth	8,860
19	Frances	8,789
20	Jean	8,536
21	Janet	8,080
22	Donna	7,932
23	Carolyn	7,906
24	Martha	7,392
25	Phyllis	7,374

All 200 girls’ names of 1936 (4,856 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Robert	58,500
2	James	54,694
3	John	47,683
4	William	39,398
5	Richard	33,494
6	Charles	29,101
7	Donald	28,639
8	Thomas	18,342
9	George	18,197
10	David	17,476
11	Joseph	17,453
12	Ronald	16,917
13	Edward	14,194
14	Kenneth	12,486
15	Paul	12,307
16	Frank	10,186
17	Raymond	9,459
18	Jerry	9,271
19	Gerald	9,018
20	Jack	8,857
21	Harold	8,628
22	Billy	8,587
23	Joe	8,023
24	Bobby	7,735
25	Larry	7,611

All 200 boys’ names of 1936 (4,037 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1935:

Shelba #3,742 → #504 +3,238
Shelby #840 → #178 +662
Wendy #1,418 → #818 +600
Deanna #1,356 → #768 +588
Shari #1,514 → #968 +546
Gayla #1,483 → #993 +490
Roxanna #1,381 → #979 +402
Roxanne #1,331 → #941 +390

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1935:

Errol #1,708 → #906 +802
Sergio #1,584 → #940 +644
Brice #1,494 → #893 +601
Windell #1,390 → #853 +537
Kim #1,390 → #861 +529
Landon #930 → #422 +508
Hampton #1,494 → #989 +505
Reggie #1,422 → #924 +498

Kim 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 1936, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1936:

Shelva 89
Shelvia 33
Dwanna 20
Shelbie 19
Dellene 17
Durelle 12
Karan 12
Shelbia 12
Janace 10
Mardee 9

Durelle 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.

First recorded in 1936, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1936:

Shelva 9
Renny 9
Rolyn 8
Darren 7
Arty 7
Reg 6
Benjy 6
Darryll 6
Alexzander 6
Darley 6

Shelva and Darley 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.

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.