Baby names of 1937

Mary and Robert topped the lists in 1937, out of 2,130,692 births recorded across 7,968 different names. That is 2.6% more than the 1936 files hold. About 575,000 of them are alive today.

← 1936 All years 1938 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	55,641
2	Barbara	34,917
3	Patricia	26,838
4	Shirley	26,823
5	Betty	25,337
6	Carol	17,336
7	Nancy	17,074
8	Dorothy	16,572
9	Joan	15,301
10	Margaret	15,144
11	Joyce	11,808
12	Helen	11,453
13	Marilyn	9,739
14	Beverly	9,634
15	Ruth	9,602
16	Virginia	9,517
17	Elizabeth	9,385
18	Janet	9,363
19	Frances	9,057
20	Carolyn	8,941
21	Donna	8,887
22	Doris	8,883
23	Jean	8,392
24	Martha	7,953
25	Janice	7,768

All 200 girls’ names of 1937 (4,930 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Robert	61,842
2	James	56,561
3	John	48,755
4	William	40,725
5	Richard	32,975
6	Charles	30,520
7	Donald	27,868
8	David	20,981
9	Thomas	19,772
10	George	18,439
11	Ronald	18,141
12	Joseph	17,322
13	Edward	14,930
14	Kenneth	13,219
15	Paul	12,881
16	Larry	10,320
17	Jerry	10,301
18	Frank	10,127
19	Raymond	9,571
20	Gerald	9,425
21	Harold	8,550
22	Billy	8,301
23	Jack	8,194
24	Joe	7,745
24	Bobby	7,745

All 200 boys’ names of 1937 (4,020 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1936:

Noreta #4,181 → #964 +3,217
Noretta #3,701 → #856 +2,845
Leilani #3,103 → #752 +2,351
Deann #2,263 → #856 +1,407
Norita #1,741 → #532 +1,209
Deanne #1,593 → #426 +1,167
Deanna #768 → #139 +629
Dianna #1,081 → #558 +523

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1936:

Tyrone #2,629 → #706 +1,923
Lamont #1,540 → #982 +558
Lary #1,540 → #1,000 +540
Errol #906 → #490 +416
Levon #1,356 → #957 +399
Raymundo #1,225 → #896 +329
Gloria #1,326 → #1,000 +326
Dempsey #1,296 → #982 +314

Gloria 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 1937, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1937:

Deeann 18
Noreda 17
Norrita 16
Loueen 15
Kenlyn 14
Starlene 12
Wyonda 10
Shirlean 10
Kirsten 10
Charon 9

First recorded in 1937, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1937:

Rogue 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.

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.