Midcentury furniture may be in, but midcentury baby names, not so much. These are the names of the Baby Boomers, grandmas and grandpas of today, and their names feel old-fashioned to young parents. It doesn’t help that some of these names, such as Karen and Susan, have become meme-ified and turned into punchlines.
Many of these names no longer make the popularity rankings, but along with Karen, other midcentury baby names in the US Top 1000 include Bruce, Ellen, Gregory, Judith, Kevin, Linda, Richard, and Teresa. Among the names we expect to bounce back first are Bonnie, Russell, Gloria, and Billy.
Wait a generation or two, and given the hundred year rule, you might look for these midcentury names to make a comeback as baby names in the 2040s and 2050s. Well, maybe not Karen. Here, the top baby names in midcentury America.
Meaning: rain; honor bestows a crown
