Baby names of 1970

Jennifer and Michael topped the lists in 1970, out of 3,606,373 births recorded across 13,414 different names. That is 3.8% more than the 1969 files hold. About 3.2 million of them are alive today.

← 1969 All years 1971 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Jennifer	46,150
2	Lisa	38,967
3	Kimberly	34,130
4	Michelle	34,047
5	Amy	25,212
6	Angela	24,929
7	Melissa	23,735
8	Tammy	19,587
9	Mary	19,204
10	Tracy	18,464
11	Julie	17,158
12	Karen	16,699
13	Laura	16,490
14	Christine	16,061
15	Susan	15,738
16	Dawn	15,681
17	Stephanie	15,387
18	Elizabeth	15,108
19	Heather	14,669
20	Kelly	14,607
21	Tina	13,861
22	Shannon	13,547
23	Lori	13,448
24	Patricia	13,406
25	Cynthia	12,913

All 200 girls’ names of 1970 (9,355 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Michael	85,266
2	James	61,735
3	David	61,728
4	John	58,491
5	Robert	57,177
6	Christopher	41,747
7	William	38,887
8	Brian	31,917
9	Mark	31,461
10	Richard	30,442
11	Jeffrey	30,139
12	Scott	28,565
13	Jason	27,272
14	Kevin	26,968
15	Steven	26,793
16	Joseph	26,714
17	Thomas	26,669
18	Eric	23,571
19	Daniel	23,521
20	Timothy	22,422
21	Charles	22,411
22	Anthony	21,176
23	Paul	20,196
24	Matthew	20,185
25	Kenneth	16,800

All 200 boys’ names of 1970 (5,433 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1969:

Tanisha #2,515 → #974 +1,541
India #1,955 → #761 +1,194
Shay #1,648 → #953 +695
Terra #1,303 → #618 +685
Dyan #1,648 → #979 +669
Tera #1,303 → #762 +541
Tisa #1,402 → #910 +492
Treena #1,465 → #989 +476

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1969:

Jermaine #4,404 → #621 +3,783
Dax #1,861 → #861 +1,000
Jeramy #1,810 → #968 +842
Branden #1,570 → #931 +639
Braden #1,396 → #989 +407
Jeromy #1,198 → #812 +386
Bronson #1,231 → #861 +370
Kenyatta #1,265 → #898 +367

Kenyatta 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 1970, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1970:

Shilo 38
Rewa 24
Chasity 18
Chamaine 16
Eboni 15
Dardi 14
Angeleque 14
Ashanti 14
Aricka 14
Juandalynn 13

First recorded in 1970, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1970:

Toriano 62
Ngai 26
Keefer 16
Ashanti 14
Jeromey 14
Omarr 14
Kofi 14
Jermain 13
Mcgarrett 12
Cheston 11

Ashanti 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.