Data story
The rise and fall of American names
146 years · 117,820 names · one federal source
In 146 years of US birth records, 19 names have ever been number one. Not 19 per decade — 19 in total, out of 117,820 names the government has ever recorded. Below them sits a larger group: the names that reached the very top and then fell further than anything else in the data.
Girls' names fall about twice as far
The clearest pattern in the corpus
Take every name that ever reached the national top 100 and still charts today, and measure how far it has fallen from its own best year. The median girls’ name has lost 586 places. The median boys’ name has lost 289.
That is 505 girls’ names against 394 boys’ names, so it is not an artifact of one group being much larger — the girls’ side is only modestly bigger and falls roughly twice as far. Whatever is fashionable in girls’ naming moves faster and abandons its favorites more completely, and it has done so across 146 years.
Names that have left the charts entirely are excluded from both medians. They have no current rank, so they have no honest distance — substituting a placeholder would let the placeholder decide the answer. They are listed separately below.
Names that left the charts altogether
Top 100 once, unranked today
These reached the national top 100 and no longer appear in the rankings at all. The living column estimates how many Americans still carry each name, which is what makes the disappearance odd: these are not obscure names. They are names a great many people answer to.
The furthest falls still on the charts
Peaked in the top 100, still recorded today
| Name | Peak | Year | Today | Places lost | Living |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Garfieldboy | #88 | 1881 | #12,008 | 11,920 | 1,698 |
| Phyllisgirl | #24 | 1929 | #11,932 | 11,908 | 147,721 |
| Myrtlegirl | #27 | 1894 | #10,917 | 10,890 | 13,225 |
| Latoyagirl | #60 | 1984 | #10,917 | 10,857 | 44,138 |
| Bertboy | #47 | 1880 | #10,695 | 10,648 | 10,585 |
| Kimboy | #98 | 1955 | #10,695 | 10,597 | 25,746 |
| Carolegirl | #35 | 1942 | #10,107 | 10,072 | 66,790 |
| Williegirl | #54 | 1909 | #10,107 | 10,053 | 32,019 |
| Bobboy | #75 | 1934 | #9,714 | 9,639 | 38,846 |
| Terrygirl | #83 | 1955 | #9,457 | 9,374 | 78,708 |
| Tonyagirl | #36 | 1973 | #8,860 | 8,824 | 112,713 |
| Suegirl | #61 | 1946 | #8,860 | 8,799 | 89,770 |
| Peggygirl | #31 | 1937 | #8,362 | 8,331 | 180,094 |
| Cathygirl | #34 | 1958 | #8,362 | 8,328 | 144,135 |
| Gailgirl | #36 | 1951 | #8,362 | 8,326 | 149,161 |
| Sherrigirl | #78 | 1963 | #8,362 | 8,284 | 75,066 |
| Traceygirl | #55 | 1970 | #7,885 | 7,830 | 80,146 |
| Sheenagirl | #80 | 1984 | #7,885 | 7,805 | 21,577 |
| Marshagirl | #68 | 1950 | #7,491 | 7,423 | 82,579 |
| Christiegirl | #96 | 1975 | #7,491 | 7,395 | 42,210 |
| Kristigirl | #98 | 1978 | #7,491 | 7,393 | 71,816 |
| Clevelandboy | #92 | 1884 | #7,194 | 7,102 | 9,793 |
| Bessiegirl | #9 | 1889 | #6,838 | 6,829 | 22,434 |
| Blanchegirl | #51 | 1886 | #6,838 | 6,787 | 9,132 |
| Gertrudegirl | #22 | 1906 | #6,546 | 6,524 | 15,714 |
| Margiegirl | #95 | 1933 | #6,546 | 6,451 | 43,165 |
| Rhondagirl | #37 | 1965 | #6,116 | 6,079 | 184,648 |
| Terrigirl | #46 | 1959 | #6,116 | 6,070 | 129,263 |
| Horaceboy | #79 | 1880 | #6,143 | 6,064 | 15,728 |
| Mamiegirl | #53 | 1888 | #6,116 | 6,063 | 12,869 |
| Wandagirl | #47 | 1934 | #5,917 | 5,870 | 165,237 |
| Patsygirl | #52 | 1936 | #5,917 | 5,865 | 63,913 |
| Beulahgirl | #72 | 1903 | #5,917 | 5,845 | 8,398 |
| Glendagirl | #79 | 1944 | #5,917 | 5,838 | 79,448 |
| Jillgirl | #41 | 1977 | #5,722 | 5,681 | 185,826 |
| Deloresgirl | #51 | 1934 | #5,722 | 5,671 | 56,848 |
| Diannegirl | #72 | 1945 | #5,722 | 5,650 | 72,583 |
| Velmagirl | #88 | 1912 | #5,722 | 5,634 | 21,267 |
| Shellygirl | #89 | 1966 | #5,722 | 5,633 | 77,530 |
| Nettiegirl | #62 | 1881 | #5,554 | 5,492 | 7,932 |
Method, source and reuse
Every figure comes from the US Social Security Administration’s record of names given to five or more babies of one sex in a year, 1880–2025. A name qualifies for this page if its all-time best national rank was 100 or better. Distance fallen is current rank minus peak rank, and is left blank rather than estimated where a name no longer charts. Living bearers are an estimate, not a count: births per year weighted by SSA period life tables. The full method and sources are published.
The underlying SSA data is a US federal government work and is in the public domain. The table we derive from it — this page and the CSV, which carries the full table this page draws from, at a URL that will not move — is published under CC BY 4.0: reuse it freely, with a link back to Name Battle as attribution.
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