Eras & decades
Names that peaked exactly a century ago
22 names · 10 girls · 12 boys · records through 2025
The most-repeated claim in naming is that a name takes about a century to come back. This page tests it on the names for which the century is up right now — those whose all-time peak fell in the mid-1920s.
This guide has 22 names: 10 girl names and 12 boy names. Names whose all-time peak year fell within two years of a century ago, ranked by their historical peak. 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
The data does not treat them alike, and the split is stark. Robert — the #1 boys' name of 1924 — is back inside the top 100. June, Calvin and Leon have climbed to the edge of it. Wilma, Bette and Seymour have had their full hundred years and have not moved at all.
That is the honest version of the rule. The cycle is real, but it selects: soft-sounding names and short forms travel back, while names tied hard to one decade's fashion mostly stay where they fell.
Girl names
10 names
- Jean#12 in 1926 · #2117 today
- Gloria#20 in 1925 · #654 today
- June#39 in 1925 · #150 today
- Juanita#48 in 1924 · #2778 today
- Wilma#62 in 1925 · #3645 today
- Marian#64 in 1924 · #1102 today
- Maxine#76 in 1923 · #496 today
- Bette#148 in 1923 · #10917 today
- Imogene#157 in 1927 · #2514 today
- Ernestine#193 in 1926 · unranked today
Boy names
12 names
- Robert#1 in 1924 · #92 today
- Eugene#20 in 1927 · #943 today
- Leonard#37 in 1923 · #637 today
- Calvin#44 in 1924 · #132 today
- Melvin#47 in 1926 · #958 today
- Alvin#66 in 1927 · #838 today
- Wallace#69 in 1923 · #960 today
- Leon#73 in 1926 · #138 today
- Roland#98 in 1924 · #607 today
- Rudolph#110 in 1927 · #4139 today
- Junior#115 in 1925 · #752 today
- Seymour#182 in 1924 · #7194 today
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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