Most Popular Male Names

A while back, I did a post on the Most Popular Female Names in the 1990 US census. I thought it was time to give equal time to the boy names. Here is a list of the most popular male names on the 1990 US census. This is a very different list from the most popular baby names of today because the 1990 census lists includes all ages - from newborns to those who are over 100 - everyone who was on the 1990 census Most Popular Male First Names on 1990 US Census

1. JAMES
2. JOHN
3. ROBERT
4. MICHAEL
5. WILLIAM
6. DAVID
7. RICHARD
8. CHARLES
9. JOSEPH
10. THOMAS
11. CHRISTOPHER
12. DANIEL
13. PAUL
14. MARK
15. DONALD
16. GEORGE
17. KENNETH
18. STEVEN
19. EDWARD
20. BRIAN

Compare these names to the top 20 male names today, and you can see how a persons first name may help place his birthdate.  Scroll down on that page and you can see the popular names by region and decade which may give birth clues to some names in your family tree.

You can go to the US 1990 census database at httpp://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/data/1990surnames/dist.male.first to search for the popularity of your own name.