Alma
Alma is ranked 472nd among girls in 2024 (653 births). Its best rank was 51st, in 1896–1897, 1899.
- Rank in 2024
- #472down 11 from 2023
- Births in 2024
- 6530.04% of girls
- Peak year
- 19183,650 births
- Best rank
- #51first in 1896
- Since 1880
- 165,228people given the name
The story in the numbers
163,016 girls have been named Alma in the United States since 1880, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 1918, with 3,650 births — 0.32% of all girls recorded that year.
It is rising: its share of births is at least one and a half times what it was ten years ago (rank 677 → 472).
Half of everyone given the name was born by 1927, and the 1920s alone account for 19%. It has spent 145 of 145 years in the top 1,000, 48 of them in the top 100.
It is overwhelmingly a girl’s name: 2,212 boys have also been given it, 1.3% of the total.
Rank among girls, year by year
By decade
| Decade | girls named Alma | |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 5,190 | |
| 1890s | 11,184 | |
| 1900s | 13,092 | |
| 1910s | 27,515 | |
| 1920s | 30,434 | |
| 1930s | 18,251 | |
| 1940s | 12,400 | |
| 1950s | 9,637 | |
| 1960s | 6,381 | |
| 1970s | 5,592 | |
| 1980s | 5,688 | |
| 1990s | 6,031 | |
| 2000s | 4,550 | |
| 2010s | 3,963 | |
| 2020s | 3,108 |
In 1918, its biggest year
Alma was the 73rd most given girl’s name that year. The top five girls’ names of 1918 were Mary, Helen, Dorothy, Margaret and Ruth. See all of 1918.
Names that rose and fell with Alma
Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.
- Loviepeak 1919
- Ednapeak 1918
- Estapeak 1920
- Elsiepeak 1918
- Oleviapeak 1921
- Elvapeak 1918
- Unapeak 1921
- Virgiepeak 1918
What this page does not tell you. The Social Security data records how many babies were given a name, not what the name means or where it comes from — so neither do we. Counts cover people with a Social Security number; names given to fewer than five babies in a year are withheld. More on the data.