Baby names of 1951

Linda and James topped the lists in 1951, out of 3,683,696 births recorded across 9,432 different names. That is 5.1% more than the 1950 files hold. About 2.5 million of them are alive today.

← 1950 All years 1952 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Linda	73,982
2	Mary	65,721
3	Patricia	56,446
4	Deborah	42,053
5	Barbara	40,617
6	Susan	40,228
7	Nancy	30,346
8	Karen	27,998
9	Sandra	27,665
10	Kathleen	26,716
11	Carol	24,781
12	Donna	24,074
13	Sharon	23,920
14	Brenda	21,717
15	Diane	19,840
16	Pamela	18,570
17	Margaret	17,692
18	Debra	17,064
19	Janet	16,947
20	Cynthia	16,295
21	Janice	15,958
22	Carolyn	15,206
23	Elizabeth	15,118
24	Christine	15,017
25	Judith	14,935

All 200 girls’ names of 1951 (6,213 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	James	87,256
2	Robert	86,353
3	John	81,569
4	Michael	72,807
5	David	64,788
6	William	62,781
7	Richard	54,541
8	Thomas	48,275
9	Charles	39,406
10	Gary	38,160
11	Larry	30,558
12	Ronald	29,049
13	Steven	28,363
14	Joseph	28,147
15	Donald	27,916
16	Kenneth	25,841
17	Dennis	24,264
18	Paul	22,853
19	Stephen	22,474
20	Mark	21,201
21	Daniel	21,121
22	George	20,212
23	Edward	19,913
24	Jerry	15,164
25	Gregory	14,102

All 200 boys’ names of 1951 (4,253 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1950:

Rhona #1,333 → #988 +345
Bobbi #1,153 → #846 +307
Ricki #1,090 → #794 +296
Mindy #771 → #476 +295
Sharleen #1,053 → #765 +288
Kyle #876 → #594 +282
Vanessa #937 → #656 +281
Teena #1,234 → #961 +273

Kyle 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.

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1950:

Kimberly #1,139 → #711 +428
Cole #1,364 → #992 +372
Wayland #1,272 → #915 +357
Ricki #1,139 → #785 +354
Lou #1,289 → #943 +346
Lucian #1,203 → #867 +336
Aron #1,272 → #972 +300
Lennie #1,232 → #984 +248

Kimberly, Ricki, Lou and Lennie 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 1951, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1951:

Debralee 19
Deniese 16
Joshlyn 14
Ilze 13
Mala 12
Shaye 12
Darcell 12
Shae 11
Zelinda 11
Piper 11

First recorded in 1951, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1951:

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.