Eras & decades
Silent Generation names (born 1928–1945)
100 names · 50 girls · 50 boys · records through 2025
The generation born through the Depression and the Second World War, named in the records of 1928 to 1945.
This guide has 100 names: 50 girl names and 50 boy names. Names ranked in the national top-100 in any year from 1928 to 1945. 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
Mary still led the girls for the entire span; the boys changed hands once, Robert giving way to James in 1940. Stability was the era's signature, and it shows in how little the chart moves.
This is the generation whose names now read as a grandparent's or a great-grandparent's — which, by the hundred-year rule, is precisely the shelf the 2030s and 2040s will shop from.
Girl names
50 names
- Mary1.1M in its top-100 years
- Barbara569k in its top-100 years
- Betty498k in its top-100 years
- Patricia468k in its top-100 years
- Shirley361k in its top-100 years
- Dorothy361k in its top-100 years
- Carol294k in its top-100 years
- Margaret293k in its top-100 years
- Nancy288k in its top-100 years
- Joan270k in its top-100 years
- Helen241k in its top-100 years
- Joyce224k in its top-100 years
- Linda217k in its top-100 years
- Ruth196k in its top-100 years
- Virginia191k in its top-100 years
- Doris185k in its top-100 years
- Elizabeth184k in its top-100 years
- Judith183k in its top-100 years
- Carolyn181k in its top-100 years
- Sandra180k in its top-100 years
- Marilyn168k in its top-100 years
- Frances168k in its top-100 years
- Donna167k in its top-100 years
- Jean166k in its top-100 years
- Janet154k in its top-100 years
- Martha149k in its top-100 years
- Beverly144k in its top-100 years
- Alice142k in its top-100 years
- Gloria141k in its top-100 years
- Sharon140k in its top-100 years
- Lois137k in its top-100 years
- Phyllis133k in its top-100 years
- Marie119k in its top-100 years
- Evelyn118k in its top-100 years
- Ann118k in its top-100 years
- Dolores117k in its top-100 years
- Norma116k in its top-100 years
- Anna112k in its top-100 years
- Judy108k in its top-100 years
- Janice106k in its top-100 years
- Mildred105k in its top-100 years
- Rose105k in its top-100 years
- Kathleen103k in its top-100 years
- Peggy101k in its top-100 years
- Catherine94k in its top-100 years
- Karen92k in its top-100 years
- Jane91k in its top-100 years
- Geraldine91k in its top-100 years
- Bonnie89k in its top-100 years
- Susan89k in its top-100 years
Boy names
50 names
- Robert1.1M in its top-100 years
- James1.1M in its top-100 years
- John974k in its top-100 years
- William820k in its top-100 years
- Richard647k in its top-100 years
- Charles568k in its top-100 years
- Donald476k in its top-100 years
- Thomas395k in its top-100 years
- David392k in its top-100 years
- George360k in its top-100 years
- Joseph349k in its top-100 years
- Ronald299k in its top-100 years
- Edward281k in its top-100 years
- Kenneth252k in its top-100 years
- Paul248k in its top-100 years
- Frank203k in its top-100 years
- Michael195k in its top-100 years
- Larry191k in its top-100 years
- Raymond186k in its top-100 years
- Jerry184k in its top-100 years
- Harold169k in its top-100 years
- Jack164k in its top-100 years
- Gerald157k in its top-100 years
- Walter150k in its top-100 years
- Billy146k in its top-100 years
- Gary144k in its top-100 years
- Henry131k in its top-100 years
- Arthur128k in its top-100 years
- Joe128k in its top-100 years
- Eugene124k in its top-100 years
- Carl122k in its top-100 years
- Willie117k in its top-100 years
- Ralph117k in its top-100 years
- Albert115k in its top-100 years
- Bobby113k in its top-100 years
- Roger112k in its top-100 years
- Lawrence108k in its top-100 years
- Daniel107k in its top-100 years
- Fred102k in its top-100 years
- Roy101k in its top-100 years
- Harry100k in its top-100 years
- Howard95k in its top-100 years
- Dennis94k in its top-100 years
- Louis88k in its top-100 years
- Norman87k in its top-100 years
- Anthony86k in its top-100 years
- Wayne85k in its top-100 years
- Earl80k in its top-100 years
- Peter79k in its top-100 years
- Clarence76k 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.
Two of these will end up on your shortlist
Reading a list is the easy part. Put these names in front of the person you have to agree with.
Free · everyone you invite plays in one tap, no account
Keep reading
Lists built the same way