Gladys
Gladys is outside the top 1,000 in 2024, with 45 births. Its best rank was 11th, in 1901.
- Rank in 2024
- —outside the top 1,000
- Births in 2024
- 450.00% of girls
- Peak year
- 19208,819 births
- Best rank
- #11in 1901
- Since 1880
- 267,689people given the name
The story in the numbers
266,666 girls have been named Gladys in the United States since 1880, according to Social Security records. The busiest single year was 1920, with 8,819 births — 0.74% of all girls recorded that year.
The name has all but left use: 45 births in 2024, against 8,819 at the peak.
Half of everyone given the name was born by 1922, and the 1920s alone account for 27%. It has spent 119 of 145 years in the top 1,000, 49 of them in the top 100.
It is overwhelmingly a girl’s name: 1,023 boys have also been given it, 0.38% of the total.
Rank among girls, year by year
By decade
| Decade | girls named Gladys | |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 1,420 | |
| 1890s | 13,622 | |
| 1900s | 30,285 | |
| 1910s | 65,812 | |
| 1920s | 72,561 | |
| 1930s | 34,761 | |
| 1940s | 19,063 | |
| 1950s | 12,181 | |
| 1960s | 5,945 | |
| 1970s | 2,766 | |
| 1980s | 2,510 | |
| 1990s | 2,918 | |
| 2000s | 1,767 | |
| 2010s | 745 | |
| 2020s | 310 |
In 1920, its biggest year
Gladys was the 22nd most given girl’s name that year. The top five girls’ names of 1920 were Mary, Dorothy, Helen, Margaret and Ruth. See all of 1920.
Names that rose and fell with Gladys
Same sex, most similar popularity curve over 145 years, in five-year steps — the shape of the line, not the size.
- Oziepeak 1922
- Buelahpeak 1927
- Lossiepeak 1921
- Beatricepeak 1921
- Zelmapeak 1919
- Hildredpeak 1920
- Marguerittepeak 1919
- Flonniepeak 1914
Other spellings in the data
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.