Peak-Proof: The Steadiest Names of the Century

Nov 6, 2026 Abigail Adams, Editorial writer

Every baby-name list you've ever read ranks names by their best year. Flip the question. Rank names by their worst year — the deepest they ever sank — and demand a long record: ranked in at least 110 of the 116 years from 1910 to 2025, and never, not once, below #50.

From the 1,027 name-and-gender combinations with records that long, six names survive.

Name	Best year	Worst year	2025 rank (babies)
James (M)	#1	#19	#6 (11,945)
William (M)	#2	#20	#9 (10,545)
Elizabeth (F)	#7	#26	#17 (6,760)
John (M)	#1	#28	#23 (8,027)
Joseph (M)	#5	#32	#29 (7,303)
David (M)	#1	#35	#35 (6,780)

Read that table again — every row is an astonishment

James has never been out of the top 20. Not in the Depression, not in the Jennifer era, not in the age of Liam. In 116 years, the worst America ever felt about James was #19.

William has never been #1 — and never below #20. The eternal runner-up: a century of finishing second through twentieth, the highest floor of any name that never touched the crown. Joseph is the same shape in miniature: never higher than #5, never lower than #32.

Elizabeth is alone. She is the only girls' name on this list — and if you widen the test to "never out of the top 100," she is still the only girls' name. The entire century of girls' naming, with its revolutions every generation, produced exactly one name that never had a bad year. Her worst was #26; her best, #7. No spike, no crash, no decade off.

The kings who dipped

The near-miss list is almost as revealing. The next tier — never below #100, but with at least one year outside the top 50 — runs: Anthony (worst #53), Daniel (#55), Michael (#56), Charles (#63), Thomas (#63), Andrew (#86), Robert (#91), Samuel (#91).

Yes, that Michael — #1 for 44 years, the longest reign in the boys' chart — once sank to #56. Even Robert, #1 in the 1930s and 40s, once touched #91. The six names above them aren't more famous than Michael or Robert. They're something rarer: they are the names fashion never managed to wound. And notice the whole bedrock, top to bottom of both tiers, is boys' names plus Elizabeth — the same asymmetry you'll find everywhere in this data: boys' names are load-bearing, girls' names are reinvented, and Elizabeth declined to participate.

What "steady" actually buys you

A name from this list offers something no trendy name can: a century of evidence that it will never sound dated. James at his worst was still a top-20 name; there has never been a year, a classroom, or a generation in which these six sounded like a fad or a fossil. They are not exciting. That is precisely the point — excitement is what the rest of the chart is for.

If steadiness is your whole brief, Elizabeth is the single choice on the girls' side, and on the boys' side you are choosing between James's top-20 eternity and William's never-quite-#1 floor. Every other name in America asks you to accept some risk. These six never have.

Meet the bedrock up close: John, Elizabeth, and the century chart at baby names by decade.