1960s Name Generator

In the United States, Lisa was the number one girls' name every year from 1962 to 1969, with Mary, Susan, Karen, Kimberly, Patricia, Linda, Donna, Michelle and Cynthia filling out the top ten. For boys the order was Michael, David, John, James, Robert, Mark, William, Richard, Thomas and Jeffrey. In England and Wales, Susan, Julie, Karen, Jacqueline and Deborah led for girls, and David, Paul, Stephen, Mark and Andrew for boys.

The ones that peaked in the decade and then faded: Tammy, Lori, Tracy, Rhonda, Dawn, Kimberly, Sherry, Tina and Debra for girls, and Todd, Craig, Jeff, Keith, Scott, Randy, Ricky, Darrell and Dwayne for boys. A name like Tammy Wilcox or Todd Kristiansen places a character in the sixties more precisely than Michael or Susan, which stayed popular for decades.

Some did, but later than you might think. Nature and virtue names like Sky, River, Summer, Rain and Harmony start appearing in birth records around 1967 and become noticeable only in the early 1970s. A flower child born in 1969 could be named Meadow; a child of the same parents born in 1963 was almost certainly a Lisa or a David.

Use the UK chart rather than the American one. Sixties British babies were Susan, Julie, Karen, Jacqueline, Deborah, Tracey, Alison and Gillian, or David, Paul, Stephen, Mark, Andrew, Ian, Kevin and Gary. Pair them with a regional surname: Lancashire and Yorkshire names like Ramsbottom, Hargreaves and Sidebottom for a Northern mod, and plainer Southern names like Ashby or Cartwright for London.