In 1947, 99,692 babies were named Linda. One in fifteen American girls born that year carried the name. It was the most successful single name in 145 years of SSA records.
In 2025, the count was 294.
Linda, 1930 to 2025
Annual births from the SSA national dataset. The biggest single-name peak in American naming history, now nearly invisible at the right edge.
100k 75k 50k 25k 0 1930 1947 1970 1995 2025 99,692 in 1947 294 in 2025
Linda didn't go out of fashion in the usual sense. It became a generation. When parents hear the name in 2026, they picture a woman in her seventies. Names that dominate a single era pick up a generational signature, and once that signature is set, the name becomes unusable for new parents until the cohort has cycled all the way out of mind.
Boomer-era names: 2025 births as a fraction of each name's peak
Each row shows the peak count and the 2025 count. At full scale, the 2025 bars are barely visible.
Linda 99,692 to 294
Deborah 52,318 to 313
Patricia 51,278 to 167
Karen 40,591 to 175
Donna 34,138 to 98
Gary 36,967 to 201
Dennis 34,368 to 127
Karen has the additional weight of becoming a meme during 2018 to 2021, which probably accelerated its drop. The others are just running the standard generational decline. By 2085, today's Liam, Emma, Noah, and Olivia will be in the same position. Whatever the equivalent of "Karen" is in the 2080s, it will be one of these.
Browse more at Endangered names, or follow the full arc of Linda, Deborah, Karen, and Patricia.