Meanings & themes

Founding-era American names

46 names · 14 girls · 32 boys · records through 2025

The naming register of eighteenth-century America was overwhelmingly biblical, with a distinctive Puritan layer of virtue words alongside it.

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This guide has 46 names: 14 girl names and 32 boy names. A curated set of Revolutionary-era American names matched against the latest US records; only names in real use appear. Built from US Social Security birth records through 2025. Tap + beside any name to keep it on your shortlist as you read.

Before the names

That first layer has come back hard: Ezra, Silas, Levi, Caleb and Abigail are all in confident current use. The virtue layer has not — Temperance, Thankful and Submit appear in the historical record and essentially nowhere else.

The list below shows only what the current data actually holds, which is the honest measure of what survived.

Girl names

14 names

Boy names

32 names

Every rank and count here is published by the US Social Security Administration and refreshed each year when the new figures land. The method is stated at the top of this page.

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