Baby Boomer Names...

General Name Discussion
1

First of all, I just want to apologize in case anyone else has already posted this or something like this! :slight_smile:

I was just wondering what types of names were popular around the time of the post WWII baby boom (from the late '40s to the early '60s). This would help me a lot with a story I’m writing…can you help?

2

Here is the ultimate source:

If you scroll down, on the left side, Popular Names by Birth Year, you can input a goal year and look at the most popular names of that year, you can choose top 20 or 50, 100, 500, or 1000 maximum.

Here is an even better page:

On the left column, you can choose a different decade, and it compiles the most popular names of a target decade. That goes up to 1000 by default, but you can stop looking after the first 100 or so if you really want a popular name.
Here are the urls for the most popular of the 1940s and the 1950s.

3

Thank you [name]Karen[/name]! I’m heading there right now!

[name]EDIT[/name]: For anyone who wants to know, here are the top 20 names of the 1950s, straight from the SSA site! I’ve put punctuation marks next to any names that I thought were unusual…or unusually popular! :slight_smile:

Boys:

  1. [name]James[/name]
  2. [name]Michael[/name]
  3. [name]Robert[/name]
  4. [name]John[/name]
  5. [name]David[/name]
  6. [name]William[/name]
  7. [name]Richard[/name]
  8. [name]Thomas[/name]
  9. [name]Mark[/name]
  10. [name]Charles[/name]
  11. [name]Steven[/name]
  12. [name]Gary[/name] (!)
  13. [name]Joseph[/name]
  14. [name]Donald[/name] (!)
  15. [name]Ronald[/name] (!)
  16. [name]Kenneth[/name]
  17. [name]Paul[/name]
  18. [name]Larry[/name] (!)
  19. [name]Daniel[/name]
  20. [name]Stephen[/name]

Girls:

  1. [name]Mary[/name]
  2. [name]Linda[/name]
  3. [name]Patricia[/name]
  4. [name]Susan[/name]
  5. [name]Deborah[/name]
  6. [name]Barbara[/name]
  7. [name]Debra[/name]
  8. [name]Karen[/name]
  9. [name]Nancy[/name]
  10. [name]Donna[/name] (?)
  11. [name]Cynthia[/name]
  12. [name]Sandra[/name] (?)
  13. [name]Pamela[/name]
  14. [name]Sharon[/name]
  15. [name]Kathleen[/name]
  16. [name]Carol[/name]
  17. [name]Diane[/name]
  18. [name]Brenda[/name] (?)
  19. [name]Cheryl[/name] (?)
  20. [name]Janet[/name] (?)
4

There are posts on this board for yearbooks from the late 1950’s into the 1960’s which I posted from my great-aunt’s yearbooks that I inherited. She was a teacher. I will find them and bump them up on this board for you.

5

Thanks Unicorngal!

6

You are welcome!