Popular 1940s baby names bite the dust

Baby names Betty and Donald have entered the endangered names list according to findings taken from the US records from the 1940s.

In the 1940s, Donald ranked ninth most popular name for American boys but is now down to 377 place.

Betty was the fifth most popular name for American girls during this time. Now, it doesn’t even come into the top 1,000.

Carol, Shirley and Ronald are other names from the 1940 top ten now on the endangered list.

“Baby names are like period pieces”, says Josh Taylor, a leading genealogist and spokesperson for findmypast.co.uk. “Some recall a particular era, which can make them useful clues for researching family history.

“Indeed, you can sometimes guess roughly when someone was born simply by their first name. In such cases, names can be to genealogy what carbon-dating is to archaeology.”