Popularity of birth names for males in the United States lists the most popular names given baby boys between 1926 and 2025. The most popular names given baby boys are also listed by decades beginning in the 1880s. The data illustrates the rise and fall in the popularity of names given to baby boys. The Social Security Administration rank orders for popular names from 1926 to 2025. Thus the numerical ranking does not take into account births between 1880 and 1925. The ranking is also influenced by the varying number of children born in each decade. In addition, people born before 1937 but alive in that year sometimes did not register for social security cards and are not included in the data. The years in which total births reached a peak in numbers with more than four million births are 1954-1964 and 2000-2009. Names popular in those years would likely rank higher on this list that names popular in years in which fewer births were recorded. Three names -- James, John, and William -- are among the top 30 most popular given names in every decade from the 1880s until 2025. The most popular boys names for the 2010s and 2020s were Liam and Noah. They have only recently become popular and did not make the list of fifty most popular names from 1926 to 2025. The Social Security Administration (SSA) compiled this information about births. In accordance with SSA practice, names are listed with the exact spelling of the birth name. For example, "Steven" and "Stephen" are listed separately.
Rank in popularity of birth names given males born in the United States (a dash means not in top 200 names)
Source:
Top 50 male birth names: Top year in rank and numbers of babies given that name (1880-2025)
Source: Note: Year of most popularity is listed by percentage of total female births. In a few cases, there may be more births with that name in one year but a higher percentage of births with that same name in another year. Footnotes
