Visualized: Mary Used to Be a Really, Really Popular Name — But Not Anymore👩

Key Takeaways

• Mary is the most popular American name for girls over the last 100 years, but has now rapidly fallen out of favour.
• Elizabeth is the only top-10 girl name from the last 100 years that has endured.

❗Where Does This Data Come From?

This chart is based on Social Security card application data as of March 2025, which includes 179 million male births and 174 million female births since 1925.

The sample set is restricted to names where the year of birth, sex, and state of birth are on record, and where the given name is at least 2 characters long.