Baby names of 1972

Jennifer and Michael topped the lists in 1972, out of 3,142,852 births recorded across 14,016 different names. That is 8.4% fewer than the 1971 files hold. About 2.9 million of them are alive today.

← 1971 All years 1973 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Jennifer	63,600
2	Michelle	29,285
3	Lisa	27,543
4	Kimberly	26,282
5	Amy	25,873
6	Angela	23,561
7	Melissa	22,494
8	Stephanie	16,890
9	Heather	16,320
10	Nicole	15,755
11	Tammy	14,211
12	Julie	14,062
13	Mary	13,757
14	Rebecca	13,252
15	Elizabeth	12,182
16	Christine	11,986
17	Laura	11,778
18	Tina	11,523
19	Tracy	11,436
20	Dawn	11,340
21	Karen	11,181
22	Shannon	10,965
23	Kelly	10,944
24	Susan	10,574
25	Cynthia	10,173

All 200 girls’ names of 1972 (9,666 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Michael	71,393
2	Christopher	52,172
3	James	47,063
4	David	46,322
5	John	43,158
6	Robert	43,013
7	Jason	37,423
8	Brian	36,306
9	William	30,510
10	Matthew	22,928
11	Scott	22,838
12	Joseph	22,454
13	Kevin	22,354
14	Richard	22,302
15	Daniel	22,092
16	Eric	22,027
17	Jeffrey	21,677
18	Mark	21,490
19	Steven	19,851
20	Thomas	19,557
21	Timothy	17,605
22	Anthony	17,454
23	Charles	16,968
24	Paul	14,555
25	Chad	13,392

All 200 boys’ names of 1972 (5,751 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1971:

Camisha #6,619 → #815 +5,804
Catina #4,123 → #202 +3,921
Cherilyn #2,665 → #823 +1,842
Chasity #2,542 → #753 +1,789
Keena #2,542 → #848 +1,694
Bree #2,477 → #937 +1,540
Chastity #1,772 → #675 +1,097
Katina #1,194 → #117 +1,077

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1971:

Demond #3,146 → #391 +2,755
Cade #2,279 → #993 +1,286
Vidal #1,526 → #621 +905
Damond #1,784 → #929 +855
Kareem #1,254 → #405 +849
Dameon #1,668 → #929 +739
Jermain #1,526 → #826 +700
Jamar #1,181 → #760 +421

First recorded in 1972, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1972:

Cotina 109
Dayatra 43
Kamisha 34
Tashara 34
Cutina 32
Katena 28
Kutina 27
Ketina 26
Kamesha 24
Kateena 22

First recorded in 1972, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1972:

Jabbar 76
Keino 19
Jermayne 17
Keyon 16
Akili 15
Jerami 15
Kenyatte 14
Demarko 13
Videl 13
Karreem 13

Videl 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.