Baby names of 1968

Lisa and Michael topped the lists in 1968, out of 3,378,363 births recorded across 11,751 different names. That is 0.5% fewer than the 1967 files hold. About 3 million of them are alive today.

← 1967 All years 1969 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Lisa	49,534
2	Michelle	33,223
3	Kimberly	31,906
4	Jennifer	26,853
5	Melissa	21,733
6	Mary	21,727
7	Angela	20,670
8	Tammy	20,058
9	Karen	19,560
10	Susan	19,503
11	Laura	18,741
12	Kelly	17,138
13	Amy	17,090
14	Christine	16,525
15	Patricia	15,803
16	Julie	15,750
17	Elizabeth	14,887
18	Tina	14,772
19	Cynthia	14,050
20	Pamela	14,031
21	Dawn	13,441
22	Lori	13,126
23	Stephanie	12,953
24	Donna	12,748
25	Tracy	12,743

All 200 girls’ names of 1968 (8,198 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Michael	81,968
2	David	63,679
3	John	60,903
4	James	60,665
5	Robert	58,174
6	William	36,927
7	Mark	35,401
8	Richard	32,976
9	Christopher	31,468
10	Brian	29,922
11	Jeffrey	28,369
12	Thomas	27,420
13	Timothy	26,496
14	Scott	26,022
15	Steven	25,493
16	Joseph	25,396
17	Kevin	23,862
18	Daniel	22,012
19	Paul	21,865
20	Charles	21,575
21	Anthony	20,231
22	Eric	18,501
23	Kenneth	18,077
24	Matthew	15,823
25	Ronald	15,415

All 200 boys’ names of 1968 (4,746 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1967:

Coretta #3,656 → #524 +3,132
Tamika #1,980 → #723 +1,257
Tamiko #1,702 → #552 +1,150
Chantel #1,348 → #741 +607
Chantal #1,441 → #951 +490
Angelique #716 → #314 +402
Shanon #1,196 → #813 +383
Joey #1,164 → #846 +318

Joey 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 1967:

Dustin #1,018 → #369 +649
Damion #1,411 → #844 +567
Korey #1,388 → #898 +490
Darby #1,364 → #930 +434
Jamal #1,181 → #788 +393
Torrance #1,340 → #996 +344
Buck #1,274 → #946 +328
Caleb #1,253 → #930 +323

Darby 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 1968, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1968:

Laryssa 67
Lya 27
Torina 26
Quetcy 21
Trenny 21
Charisma 20
Sacha 17
Jossette 16
Shahna 15
Tamaira 15

First recorded in 1968, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1968:

Jemal 47
Che 19
Manolito 14
Dack 12
Blue 11
Orenthal 10
Ricahrd 10
Deanthony 9
Shahid 9
Jerred 9

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.