What were the #1 boy and girl names for the years 1880-1925 in the United States?

Friar Tuck

A lot has changed in the last 100 years! In 1900 it was still the Victorian era and now we are living in the Internet era! The typical American living at the beginning of the 20th Century was a boy named John, who was not yet a teenager. He lived on a farm in New York or Pennsylvania and his family made about {$3,000} a year. Indoor plumbing was rare, there were no phones nor cars and life was physically quite hard. John may have attended a one-room school, probably would not finish high school and could expect to live to age 46. According to the Census Bureau, the typical American today is a young woman named Lisa, age 25 to 34. She lives in a California suburb with her daughter Emily and odds are about 50/50 that she is still married to the father of her child. Her life expectancy is to age 79, and is 74 for a male. She earns about {$45,000} per year, probably has two cars and cable TV. Lisa has almost definitely finished college. We have all received our Census forms in the mail. I hope that you have already completed the information and returned the envelope. In addition to keeping track of who is where and how old we all are the census records the popularity of names. In 1900, the top 10 names for boys were John, William, James, George, Charles, Joseph, Frank, Henry, Robert and Harry. For girls, the favorite names were Mary, Helen, Anna, Margaret, Ruth, Elizabeth, Marie, Rose, Florence and Bertha. Today, the preferences are quite {different;} the most popular names from 1999 are: Michael, Jacob, Matthew, Christopher, Joshua, Austin, Nicholas, Tyler, Joseph, Emily, Samantha, Madison, Ashley, Sarah, Hannah, Jessica, Alyssa, Alexis and Kayla. http://www.longmeadow.org/bcorner/betsy3.htm May 28 03, 1:07 PM