Baby names of 1938

Mary and Robert topped the lists in 1938, out of 2,212,603 births recorded across 8,055 different names. That is 3.8% more than the 1937 files hold. About 678,000 of them are alive today.

← 1937 All years 1939 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	56,225
2	Barbara	39,277
3	Patricia	27,560
4	Betty	25,506
5	Shirley	23,766
6	Carol	19,421
7	Nancy	18,951
8	Dorothy	16,358
9	Margaret	15,330
10	Joan	14,303
11	Joyce	12,698
12	Judith	10,878
13	Helen	10,837
14	Sandra	10,806
15	Carolyn	10,586
16	Janet	9,870
17	Elizabeth	9,803
18	Beverly	9,770
19	Marilyn	9,745
20	Donna	9,693
21	Ruth	9,303
22	Virginia	9,269
23	Frances	8,921
24	Janice	8,711
25	Doris	8,603

All 200 girls’ names of 1938 (4,995 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Robert	62,271
2	James	59,102
3	John	50,517
4	William	42,433
5	Richard	34,385
6	Charles	31,151
7	Donald	26,677
8	David	22,994
9	Thomas	21,381
10	Ronald	20,295
11	George	18,435
12	Joseph	17,742
13	Edward	14,551
14	Kenneth	14,399
15	Paul	13,360
16	Larry	12,394
17	Jerry	12,172
18	Frank	10,260
19	Gerald	9,972
20	Raymond	9,725
21	Michael	9,077
22	Gary	8,861
23	Harold	8,563
24	Billy	8,253
25	Jack	8,144

All 200 boys’ names of 1938 (4,035 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1937:

Danielle #2,940 → #731 +2,209
Lorelei #1,451 → #618 +833
Helaine #1,493 → #870 +623
Janine #1,330 → #931 +399
Imelda #1,282 → #890 +392
Cindy #1,355 → #972 +383
Arleen #688 → #375 +313
Vicky #1,099 → #799 +300

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1937:

Dion #2,197 → #883 +1,314
Tex #1,212 → #764 +448
Lonny #1,233 → #808 +425
Gonzalo #1,180 → #779 +401
Lance #722 → #339 +383
Sheridan #1,288 → #951 +337
Gorden #1,288 → #963 +325
Tyrone #706 → #393 +313

Sheridan 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 1938, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1938:

Sonjia 19
Drena 17
Clione 16
Gleora 14
Trudi 13
Gari 12
Janeene 11
Movita 10
Salli 9
Maridee 9

First recorded in 1938, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1938:

Daivd 9
Greig 8
Dannis 7
Kennet 7
Dallan 7
Rommy 6
Jary 6
Tyron 6
Karle 6
Dall 6

Karle 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.