Barbara rises, Mildred fades: first names in Massachusetts senior classes, 1920s-1940s

Mary and John led the senior classes of the 1920s and they still led in 1940–45. Below them the lists moved. Barbara went from 24th among girls’ first names to 3rd; Mildred, 8th in the 1920s, fell to 23rd. Among boys, Robert climbed from 6th to 2nd and Richard from 10th to 4th.

#24 → #3Barbara, 1920s to 1940–45
#6 → #2Robert
35.1% → 27.1%girls with a top-ten name
48,075seniors counted, 1920–45

Girls’ names

Slope chart of the most common girls' first names, 1920s and 1940-45 — Rank among classified girls' first names.

The top ten girls’ names of the 1920s were Mary, Helen, Dorothy, Ruth, Margaret, Elizabeth, Alice, Mildred, Anna, Eleanor. In 1940–45 they were Mary, Dorothy, Barbara, Helen, Ruth, Elizabeth, Irene, Doris, Eleanor, Margaret. Barbara rose from 1.07% of girls’ names to 3.64%; Phyllis from 0.4% to 1.55%; Virginia and Irene more than doubled. Margaret fell from 3.93% to 1.67%, Helen from 4.9% to 2.96%, and Mildred and Anna were each below 1% by 1940–45. The girls’ lists also spread out: the ten most common names covered 35.1% of girls in the 1920s and 27.1% in 1940–45.

Boys’ names

Slope chart of the most common boys' first names, 1920s and 1940-45 — Rank among classified boys' first names.

The boys’ list was steadier: the ten most common names covered 35.2% of boys in the 1920s and 38.9% in 1940–45. Robert went from 3.17% to 6.69% of boys’ names, Richard from 1.82% to 3.73%, and Raymond and Donald roughly doubled or more. Charles fell from 3.44% to 2.13%; Henry and Harold lost about a third of their share.

Girls' names that rose and fell, 1920s versus 1940-45 — Share of girls’ first names.

Is it just a different set of towns?

The three periods contain different schools, so we checked one city that appears in both. Springfield’s 1920s seniors (452 girls’ names, 341 boys’) had Mary, Helen, Dorothy and Ruth at the top of the girls’ list and John and George for the boys. In 1940–45 (2,432 girls’, 1,749 boys’) Barbara is third among girls (100) and Robert is first among boys (123), neither in the top five before. The shift shows up inside one city too.

How we counted

The first given name as printed in the senior entry (initials skipped), for seniors in published school yearbooks: 19,729 in 1920–29, 13,287 in 1930–39 and 15,059 in 1940–45.

“Girls’ names” and “boys’ names” are first names that were given to girls or to boys in that era (a cached judgement of each distinct name, made for the archive’s face checks). Names used for both, and strings that are not names, are left out: 1,115, 740 and 1,053 seniors in the three periods. It is a count of names, not a statement about any person.

Percentages are shares of the classified names of that sex in the period. Spelling variants are not merged (Marjorie and Marjory stay separate). The script is work/stories/s03_first_names.py.

The scans belong to the libraries that digitised them; each person page links back to its scan. Corrections and removal requests: hello@theclassalbum.com or /rights.

Look up a name: search by name, or browse by surname from any school page.

Use these charts

Reporters, librarians, teachers and society newsletters are welcome to use the charts on this page with a link back. Copy the snippet under the chart you want; it carries the credit. Every number can be recomputed from the archive’s data (see “How we counted”), and a reporter who wants a different cut, such as one school or one class year, can ask at hello@theclassalbum.com.

girls-names-rank.png

<a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/first-names-in-the-senior-class-1920s-to-1940s/"><img src="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/first-names-in-the-senior-class-1920s-to-1940s/girls-names-rank.png" alt="Rank of the most common girls&#x27; first names" width="1200" height="675" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>
<p style="font-size:.85em">Chart: The Class Album (theclassalbum.com), from yearbooks digitised by public libraries and posted on the Internet Archive. <a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/first-names-in-the-senior-class-1920s-to-1940s/">Barbara rises, Mildred fades: first names in Massachusetts senior classes, 1920s-1940s</a></p>

boys-names-rank.png

<a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/first-names-in-the-senior-class-1920s-to-1940s/"><img src="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/first-names-in-the-senior-class-1920s-to-1940s/boys-names-rank.png" alt="Rank of the most common boys&#x27; first names" width="1200" height="675" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>
<p style="font-size:.85em">Chart: The Class Album (theclassalbum.com), from yearbooks digitised by public libraries and posted on the Internet Archive. <a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/first-names-in-the-senior-class-1920s-to-1940s/">Barbara rises, Mildred fades: first names in Massachusetts senior classes, 1920s-1940s</a></p>

girls-names-movers.png

<a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/first-names-in-the-senior-class-1920s-to-1940s/"><img src="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/first-names-in-the-senior-class-1920s-to-1940s/girls-names-movers.png" alt="Girls&#x27; names that rose and fell" width="1200" height="675" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>
<p style="font-size:.85em">Chart: The Class Album (theclassalbum.com), from yearbooks digitised by public libraries and posted on the Internet Archive. <a href="https://theclassalbum.com/stories/first-names-in-the-senior-class-1920s-to-1940s/">Barbara rises, Mildred fades: first names in Massachusetts senior classes, 1920s-1940s</a></p>