US birth records, 1890 to 2025
The hundred-year rule
People say a name needs about a hundred years to come back. In US Social Security records 16 names really do it: a high point between the 1900s and the 1920s, a long gap, and a return above three fifths of that high point in the 2010s or the 2020s. Emma is one of them, at 46,730 births in its best decade before 1930 and 85,748 in the 2020s.
The names that came back
The next wave, if the rule holds
28 names were given to at least 20,000 US babies in their best decade between the 1900s and the 1930s and to no more than 1,500 across the 2010s and 2020s together. That is what the rule would point at next. It is a description of the records, not a recommendation.
How this list is made
A name comes back when its best decade between the 1900s and the 1920s reached 15,000 births, its lowest decade between the 1960s and the 1990s fell under 15% of that, and the 2010s or the 2020s climbed back above 60% of it.
A name is still waiting when its best decade between the 1900s and the 1930s reached 20,000 births and the 2010s and 2020s together stayed at or under 1,500.
Short forms that were given as legal first names in their day, Bill and Peggy among them, are left out of the waiting list: the rule is about full names coming round again. They stay on the other lists here.
One caution about the 2020s: here they cover 2020 to 2025, six years rather than ten, because that is as far as the record goes.
These are United States figures. The Social Security Administration publishes the names given to babies born in each year, and it holds back any name given to fewer than five babies of one sex in a year, so a name can be missing from a year without having gone unused.
The cut-offs on this page are ours, not the agency’s.
Only names that have a page here are listed, so every name on this page opens onto its full record.
Source: US Social Security Administration, the names given to babies born in each year through 2025.