Baby names of 1961

Mary and Michael topped the lists in 1961, out of 4,142,690 births recorded across 11,010 different names. That is 0.3% fewer than the 1960 files hold. About 3.4 million of them are alive today.

← 1960 All years 1962 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Mary	47,682
2	Lisa	42,720
3	Susan	37,532
4	Linda	35,597
5	Karen	34,707
6	Patricia	28,889
7	Donna	28,679
8	Cynthia	24,393
9	Sandra	24,153
10	Deborah	24,107
11	Brenda	23,781
12	Barbara	23,002
13	Debra	22,160
14	Lori	21,876
15	Pamela	21,691
16	Nancy	20,729
17	Sharon	20,459
18	Teresa	18,909
19	Elizabeth	18,855
20	Cheryl	18,301
21	Laura	17,901
22	Kimberly	17,355
23	Julie	17,040
24	Carol	16,667
25	Kathy	16,385

All 200 girls’ names of 1961 (7,527 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Michael	86,974
2	David	84,810
3	John	79,983
4	James	75,969
5	Robert	72,977
6	Mark	57,796
7	William	48,045
8	Richard	41,142
9	Thomas	37,565
10	Steven	32,275
11	Jeffrey	32,029
12	Joseph	29,450
13	Charles	29,194
14	Kevin	28,926
15	Timothy	28,253
16	Kenneth	26,100
17	Daniel	25,904
18	Paul	25,640
19	Scott	23,934
20	Brian	22,566
21	Gary	22,174
22	Donald	21,409
23	Gregory	21,364
24	Ronald	20,842
25	Anthony	20,209

All 200 boys’ names of 1961 (4,657 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1960:

Corinna #1,811 → #814 +997
Sabra #1,637 → #848 +789
Velvet #1,286 → #541 +745
Johnna #1,043 → #442 +601
Damita #1,597 → #997 +600
Angelique #1,467 → #895 +572
Corina #1,087 → #621 +466
Jonna #1,294 → #902 +392

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1960:

Parrish #4,038 → #867 +3,171
Brook #1,252 → #663 +589
Osvaldo #1,434 → #967 +467
Shayne #1,152 → #726 +426
Pernell #1,295 → #928 +367
Sharon #1,295 → #950 +345
Boris #1,295 → #967 +328
Lorne #1,115 → #793 +322

Brook and Sharon 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 1961, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1961:

Lavoris 37
Tarita 29
Korina 22
Shirelle 21
Kiz 21
Amby 18
Shurla 17
Coreena 16
Corrinna 15
Sharese 14

Lavoris 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 1961, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1961:

Jefre 21
Joselito 12
Garin 11
Merv 11
Jimbo 10
Piero 9
Darryell 9
Darrion 8
Geordie 8
Dedric 8

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.