Humanverse

Baby names of 1956

Mary and Michael topped the lists in 1956, out of 4,123,005 births recorded across 10,222 different names. That is 2.7% more than the 1955 files hold. About 3.1 million of them are alive today.

← 1955 All years 1957 →

Girls

#NameBirths
1Mary61,741
2Debra48,324
3Linda48,084
4Deborah47,834
5Susan46,558
6Patricia43,329
7Karen40,052
8Cynthia32,339
9Barbara32,302
10Donna29,852
11Nancy28,784
12Pamela26,928
13Sharon26,881
14Sandra24,302
15Diane22,518
16Carol21,408
17Kathleen21,377
18Cheryl21,278
19Brenda19,341
20Kathy17,177
21Janet16,758
22Elizabeth16,355
23Denise14,509
24Teresa14,464
25Margaret13,913

All 200 girls’ names of 1956 (6,891 recorded)

Boys

#NameBirths
1Michael90,691
2James84,897
3Robert83,924
4David81,652
5John80,804
6William58,991
7Richard52,915
8Mark48,828
9Thomas44,836
10Steven38,413
11Charles35,239
12Joseph32,749
13Gary31,842
14Donald28,223
15Ronald27,725
16Kenneth27,432
17Paul26,897
18Daniel26,655
19Timothy23,288
20Jeffrey23,285
21Larry22,322
22Kevin21,761
23Stephen21,204
24Gregory21,082
25Edward19,436

All 200 boys’ names of 1956 (4,455 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1955:

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1955:

Tracey, Paris and Andrea 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 1956, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1956:

Tirrell 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 1956, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1956:

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.