100 vintage baby names that are about to come back around

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Vintage baby names are having a moment right now, and it’s not hard to see why. Choosing a baby name can be a tricky task on top of all the other things you have to think about as impending parents, like packing a hospital bag or getting the nursery organized. Finding something that’s both timeless enough to take your newborn through to adulthood and unique enough to set them apart from all the other children in their class is a fine balance to strike.

That’s why many parents are turning to old fashioned names for inspiration. Rather than zoning in on the baby names that are topping the charts now, there’s a growing trend to take a look at what was popular this time last century and beyond.

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There are plenty of vintage names that have already had their resurgence — the likes of Ava, Arthur, Evelyn, and Charles, for example, have risen back to the top of US and UK baby name lists over the past few years and show no signs of budging. But there are plenty of other old fashioned names that haven’t been dug out of the archives just yet, so we’re about to uncover some of them.

We combed through historical data — the Social Security Administration’s top 500 baby names in the US in 1920 and the Office for National Statistics’ top 100 baby names in the UK in 1924 — to find the names that were popular in the 1920s but that you rarely see now, around 100 years later. If you’re hoping to find a unique, vintage name for your baby boy or baby girl before everybody else discovers it, perhaps some of these suggestions might be just what you’re looking for .…

Vintage baby girl names from the 1920s

1. Agnes
2. Annie
3. Alma
4. Beatrice
5. Bertha
6. Bessie
7. Betty
8. Beulah
9. Bridget
10. Carrie
11. Clara
12. Constance
13. Daphne
14. Dora
15. Dorothy
16. Edith
17. Edna
18. Ellen
19. Elsie
20. Enid
21. Ethel
22. Freda
23. Geneva
24. Genevieve
25. Henrietta
26. Ida
27. Iris
28. Joan
29. Josephine
30. Leona
31. Lillian
32. Lucille
33. Mabel
34. Mae
35. Martha
36. Minnie
37. Nellie
38. Nora
39. Norma
40. Olive
41. Opal
42. Pearl
43. Peggy
44. Ruth
45. Sylvia
46. Virginia
47. Vera
48. Viola
49. Vivian
50. Winifred

Vintage baby boy names from the 1920s

1. Albert
2. Alfred
3. Allen
4. Alvin
5. Arnold
6. Bernard
7. Cecil
8. Chester
9. Clarence
10. Clifford
11. Clyde
12. Cyril
13. Douglas
14. Edgar
15. Edmund
16. Edwin
17. Elmer
18. Ernest
19. Eugene
20. Everett
21. Francis
22. Franklin
23. Gilbert
24. Gordon
25. Harold
26. Herbert
27. Herman
28. Horace
29. Howard
30. Hubert
31. Ivan
32. Ivor
33. Kenneth
34. Lawrence
35. Leonard
36. Lester
37. Louis
38. Maurice
39. Percy
40. Ralph
41. Roland
42. Sidney
43. Stanley
44. Vernon
45. Victor
46. Vincent
47. Walter
48. Wallace
49. Wilbur
50. Wilfred

Old fashioned baby names: The takeaway

None of the names listed above feature highly in the US and the UK’s most up-to-date “popular baby names” lists. This shows that there are a whole host of vintage baby names that haven’t been used widely for decades, but as the trend for old fashioned baby names continues, they may just be on the cusp of coming back again.  So … are there any in there that could be perfect for your baby? If not, perhaps it’s worth taking a look through these lists of one-syllable baby names for boys, gender-neutral baby names, or uncommon baby names for girls.

History of updates

Current version (17 March 2022)

Published (08 February 2022)