Eras & decades
Generation X names (born 1965–1980)
100 names · 50 girls · 50 boys · records through 2025
Generation X is the smallest cohort in this family and the one where American naming visibly loosened: the top ten stops repeating the same handful of names it had carried since 1880.
This guide has 100 names: 50 girl names and 50 boy names. Names ranked in the national top-100 in any year from 1965 to 1980. The total beside each name counts the births of the years it made that top 100 — a name ranked lower in a given year contributes nothing for it. 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
Lisa led the girls into the era and Jennifer took over in 1970 for a fifteen-year run — the longest any girls' name has managed since Mary. Michael began his thirty-eight-year hold on the boys' #1 in 1961 and never lost it inside this window.
By the hundred-year clock these names are at the coldest point of their cycle, which is exactly where the fading classics and the future comebacks are found.
Girl names
50 names
- Jennifer752k in its top-100 years
- Lisa509k in its top-100 years
- Michelle410k in its top-100 years
- Kimberly407k in its top-100 years
- Melissa373k in its top-100 years
- Amy368k in its top-100 years
- Angela342k in its top-100 years
- Mary268k in its top-100 years
- Heather243k in its top-100 years
- Elizabeth241k in its top-100 years
- Stephanie239k in its top-100 years
- Kelly220k in its top-100 years
- Karen217k in its top-100 years
- Laura215k in its top-100 years
- Julie213k in its top-100 years
- Rebecca204k in its top-100 years
- Susan203k in its top-100 years
- Tammy196k in its top-100 years
- Christine190k in its top-100 years
- Patricia179k in its top-100 years
- Jessica177k in its top-100 years
- Christina176k in its top-100 years
- Nicole172k in its top-100 years
- Sarah166k in its top-100 years
- Cynthia164k in its top-100 years
- Dawn164k in its top-100 years
- Tracy164k in its top-100 years
- Tina158k in its top-100 years
- Amanda156k in its top-100 years
- Lori153k in its top-100 years
- Shannon140k in its top-100 years
- Sandra140k in its top-100 years
- Pamela133k in its top-100 years
- Andrea132k in its top-100 years
- Wendy131k in its top-100 years
- Maria129k in its top-100 years
- Teresa120k in its top-100 years
- Donna116k in its top-100 years
- Denise115k in its top-100 years
- Linda113k in its top-100 years
- Deborah111k in its top-100 years
- Michele105k in its top-100 years
- Sharon102k in its top-100 years
- Brenda102k in its top-100 years
- April100k in its top-100 years
- Rachel98k in its top-100 years
- Kathleen97k in its top-100 years
- Jill97k in its top-100 years
- Stacy95k in its top-100 years
- Monica94k in its top-100 years
Boy names
50 names
- Michael1.2M in its top-100 years
- David816k in its top-100 years
- James799k in its top-100 years
- John756k in its top-100 years
- Robert727k in its top-100 years
- Christopher674k in its top-100 years
- Jason544k in its top-100 years
- William500k in its top-100 years
- Brian493k in its top-100 years
- Joseph408k in its top-100 years
- Daniel390k in its top-100 years
- Richard388k in its top-100 years
- Mark385k in its top-100 years
- Matthew383k in its top-100 years
- Jeffrey364k in its top-100 years
- Kevin356k in its top-100 years
- Thomas348k in its top-100 years
- Scott340k in its top-100 years
- Steven339k in its top-100 years
- Timothy336k in its top-100 years
- Eric324k in its top-100 years
- Anthony295k in its top-100 years
- Charles288k in its top-100 years
- Paul262k in its top-100 years
- Kenneth220k in its top-100 years
- Gregory207k in its top-100 years
- Andrew204k in its top-100 years
- Stephen192k in its top-100 years
- Joshua174k in its top-100 years
- Ronald169k in its top-100 years
- Patrick166k in its top-100 years
- Ryan162k in its top-100 years
- Donald160k in its top-100 years
- Jeremy159k in its top-100 years
- Todd158k in its top-100 years
- Edward155k in its top-100 years
- Jonathan154k in its top-100 years
- Shawn146k in its top-100 years
- Gary138k in its top-100 years
- Keith135k in its top-100 years
- Douglas129k in its top-100 years
- Sean129k in its top-100 years
- Chad128k in its top-100 years
- Aaron123k in its top-100 years
- George119k in its top-100 years
- Adam111k in its top-100 years
- Peter111k in its top-100 years
- Bryan109k in its top-100 years
- Justin108k in its top-100 years
- Larry105k in its top-100 years
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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