Baby names of 1973

Jennifer and Michael topped the lists in 1973, out of 3,016,785 births recorded across 14,277 different names. That is 4.0% fewer than the 1972 files hold. About 2.8 million of them are alive today.

← 1972 All years 1974 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Jennifer	62,448
2	Amy	26,962
3	Michelle	26,935
4	Kimberly	23,531
5	Lisa	22,677
6	Melissa	22,479
7	Angela	20,898
8	Heather	19,347
9	Stephanie	17,263
10	Rebecca	14,868
11	Nicole	13,922
12	Julie	12,785
13	Elizabeth	12,360
14	Mary	12,313
15	Tammy	11,244
16	Christina	10,888
17	Christine	10,549
18	Kelly	10,512
19	Laura	10,344
20	Tracy	9,913
21	Dawn	9,890
22	Shannon	9,802
23	Karen	9,352
24	Tina	9,307
25	Susan	9,279

All 200 girls’ names of 1973 (9,810 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Michael	67,797
2	Christopher	48,313
3	Jason	46,683
4	James	42,836
5	David	41,082
6	John	39,165
7	Robert	38,698
8	Brian	35,686
9	William	28,018
10	Matthew	24,531
11	Daniel	23,672
12	Joseph	21,326
13	Eric	20,802
14	Kevin	20,768
15	Mark	20,367
16	Richard	19,942
17	Jeffrey	19,216
18	Scott	18,980
19	Thomas	17,921
20	Steven	17,175
21	Anthony	16,414
22	Timothy	16,036
23	Charles	15,752
24	Paul	12,901
25	Chad	12,886

All 200 boys’ names of 1973 (5,877 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1972:

Cicely #4,793 → #702 +4,091
Aubrey #3,177 → #882 +2,295
Nyree #2,680 → #833 +1,847
Danyell #2,523 → #990 +1,533
Vonetta #2,311 → #815 +1,496
Alethea #1,456 → #522 +934
Danyelle #1,724 → #882 +842
Anitra #1,607 → #772 +835

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1972:

Vashon #3,152 → #804 +2,348
Jory #2,158 → #753 +1,405
Pernell #1,262 → #914 +348
Enoch #1,307 → #962 +345
Tarik #1,177 → #904 +273
Burt #1,060 → #792 +268
Shedrick #1,129 → #865 +264
Marcello #1,163 → #936 +227

First recorded in 1973, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1973:

Yajaira 55
Loukisha 48
Janaya 41
Kanika 37
Yahaira 29
Season 28
Sacheen 27
Analia 24
Jenaya 24
Xaviera 24

First recorded in 1973, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1973:

Yohance 44
Jelani 36
Airrion 19
Kaine 17
Mandrell 14
Vashawn 14
Hasani 13
Chirag 12
Jeshua 12
Tijuan 12

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.