Great Gatsby & Jazz Age Baby Names: Flappers, Speakeasies, and the 100-Year Echo

When F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby in 1925, he was writing about a world of new money, long parties, and people who had reinvented themselves so thoroughly that they half-believed their own stories. A hundred years later, the names on those pages are doing something strange: they are coming back. Not the costumes, not the speakeasies — the names. Daisy, Theodore, Hazel, Cora, Evelyn. The same names that peaked when your great-grandparents were babies are peaking again now, and the timing is not a coincidence.

This is an American story, and a wealthy one — East-Coast lawns, white flannel, Art Deco gold, the green light across the bay. That makes it a different world from the foggy detective London of the 1890s or the gritty Birmingham of the postwar Peaky Blinders crowd. The Jazz Age has its own naming logic: glamour without apology, girls’ names that float and boys’ names that sound like they own a bank. Below, I have sorted the whole cast and the wider 1920s world into honest tiers — what genuinely wears well today, what is bold but doable, and what should stay on the page where Fitzgerald left it.

The 100-year echo: why 1920s names are peaking again in the 2020s

Here is the signature idea of this whole piece, and it is backed by real numbers. American naming runs on a roughly century-long cycle. A name feels fresh, climbs, saturates a generation, then sounds like your grandmother and falls out of use. It stays unfashionable for two or three generations — long enough that nobody alive associates it with a living grandmother — and then it reads as charming, antique, and brand-new again. Parents call this the “hundred-year rule.” The Gatsby generation is exactly one full turn of that wheel away from today.

Look at what the 2024 U.S. data actually shows. Evelyn, a quintessential 1920s name, now sits at #8 for girls. Theodore — impeccably 1920s, the kind of name a Buchanan cousin would carry — is #4 for boys. Hazel is #19, Eleanor #14, Daisy #76, Clara #78, Vivian #77, Josephine #56. These are not fringe revivals; they are mainstream choices that happen to be a century old. The cycle is not a vibe. It is sitting right there in the rankings.

If you want to lean into that pattern on purpose, these are vintage names that have already finished the round trip — safe, recognized, but still carrying that old-money shimmer.

• Evelyn — #8 for girls in 2024; a soft, gauzy name that was everywhere in the 1920s and is everywhere again, proof of the cycle in one word.
• Theodore — #4 for boys; Greek for “gift of God,” a name that sounds like it should be monogrammed on something.
• Hazel — #19 for girls; an English nature name (the hazel tree and its warm brown), peak-1920s and thoroughly back.
• Eleanor — #14 for girls; a stately name of Old French and Occitan roots, sturdy enough to outlast every trend.
• Clara — #78 for girls; from Latin clarus, “clear, bright” — light itself, and very much a flapper-grandmother name come home.

The Gatsby cast, name by name

Fitzgerald chose his names carefully, and most of them are wearable today — which is part of why the book still feels current. A few are pure period costume. Here is the honest read on the people in the novel.

Daisy Buchanan is the heart of it. Gatsby says her voice is “full of money,” and the name does the same trick — light and pretty on the surface, with something cooler underneath. As a name, Daisy is genuinely thriving: #76 for girls in 2024. It is an English flower name, originally the “day’s eye” (the flower that opens with the sun), and it sits comfortably among today’s pretty botanical picks. Wearable, sweet, no apology needed.

Jordan Baker, the cool professional golfer, is the sleeper hit of the cast — more on her below, because she deserves her own section. Nick Carraway, the narrator, gives us Nicholas (#118 for boys), from the Greek for “victory of the people” — and Nick himself, which is warm and easy though it does not chart on its own these days. Tom Buchanan hands us Thomas, an Aramaic name meaning “twin” that is a rock-solid #39 for boys; the clipped Tom is rarer now but never wrong.

And then the man at the center: James Gatz, who renamed himself Jay Gatsby. That reinvention is the most interesting naming moment in American literature, and it earns its own discussion further down. For the record, James is #5 for boys — the plainest, most enduring name in the book belongs to the man who threw it away.

• Daisy — #76 for girls; English flower name, the “day’s eye,” with the most famous voice in the book.
• Nicholas — #118 for boys; Greek, “victory of the people,” the narrator’s steady full name.
• Thomas — #39 for boys; Aramaic for “twin,” an unkillable classic, Tom for short.
• James — #5 for boys; the name Gatsby was born with, and still one of the most-used boys’ names in America.

One name in the cast I would handle honestly: Myrtle Wilson. Myrtle is a real name — a fragrant evergreen shrub sacred to Venus — and it has a genuine old-world charm on paper. But to a modern American ear it lands as comic and dated, the punchline of the 1920s naming era rather than its star. It does not appear in the current rankings, and I would not lead a child into a classroom with it. Admire the etymology; leave the name in 1925.

Jordan, and the Jazz Age’s surprising unisex streak

This is the second idea this piece owns. We think of the 1920s as a rigidly gendered decade, but Fitzgerald slipped something modern into it: Jordan Baker, a woman with a man’s surname-style first name, who plays competitive golf, drives carelessly, and never quite tells the truth. The name was a small, deliberate signal — Jordan is androgynous, athletic, faintly scandalous for a 1925 woman, and it still reads that way.

What makes Jordan a great pick today is that the data backs the duality. In 2024, Jordan ranks #104 for boys and #539 for girls — one of the genuinely unisex names where both columns are live. It is a Hebrew place-name, from the river that “flows down,” and it carries the Baker character’s exact energy: confident, a little cool, equally at home on a girl or a boy. If you want one Gatsby name that feels modern rather than revived, this is it.

That same flapper-era boldness shows up in a cluster of glamorous, slightly daring names from the wider 1920s — some genuinely back, some you should walk in with open eyes.

• Jordan — Unisex; #104 boys / #539 girls in 2024; Hebrew river name, “flowing down,” and the Jazz Age’s most modern-feeling pick.
• Cora — #102 for girls; from Greek korē, “maiden,” short and glossy, the kind of name a flapper would have worn well.
• Ruby — #63 for girls; a jewel name straight out of the Art Deco palette, deep red and unmistakably 1920s.
• Cecilia — #123 for girls; Latin, the patron saint of music — perfect for a decade named after jazz.
• Josephine — #56 for girls; French-via-Hebrew, “God will increase,” and it folds neatly into the snappy nickname Jo, which has its own boyish, Jazz-Age cool.

James Gatz becomes Jay Gatsby: names as self-invention

The whole novel hinges on a renaming. A poor farm boy from North Dakota named James Gatz decides, at seventeen, to become someone else — and the first thing he changes is his name. Jay Gatsby is the costume he never takes off. It is worth sitting with that, because it captures something true about naming: a name is a story you tell about who you intend to be.

It also produces a clean honest-tier lesson. The surname Gatsby is pure invention and pure affectation — it works as a literary symbol, not as a first name; it would read as a brand, not a person. Jay is the more interesting case. As Gatsby’s self-styled flourish it is all costume, but the plain, unpretentious Jay is a real and wearable name — #396 for boys in 2024, short, bright, easy. Same four letters, two completely different choices. That is the Gatsby lesson in miniature: the name is fine; it is the pose that gets you in trouble.

If self-invention is your angle, there are sophisticated Jazz-Age names with that same air of someone who decided exactly who they were going to be.

• Jay — #396 for boys; short for jaybird or for James, plain and likable on its own (skip the Gatsby pose).
• Arthur — #105 for boys; a Celtic name of contested meaning (“bear” is the favorite guess), all gravitas and old libraries.
• Vivian — #77 for girls; from Latin vivus, “alive,” a sleek, lacquered name that suits a self-made character.
• Walter — #271 for boys; Germanic, “ruler of the army,” a quietly returning grandfather name with boardroom weight.

Flapper-era girls vs. boardroom boys: the two name worlds of 1925

The 1920s split its naming into two clear moods, and you can still feel the divide. The girls’ names of the era are airy, ornamental, often floral or jewel-like — names built to sparkle at a party. The boys’ names are the opposite: heavy, dignified, the names of men in three-piece suits who run things. Knowing which world you are drawing from helps you build a sibling set that actually hangs together.

On the girls’ side, beyond the chart-toppers, these elegant and antique options carry the flapper shimmer. Some are well back; some are quiet and uncommon, which I will flag honestly.

• Pearl — the ultimate Art Deco jewel name, gleaming and soft; it is uncommon in the current data, a quiet pick rather than a crowd-pleaser, which is part of its charm.
• Florence — #435 for girls; a place-name and a virtue of flourishing, gentle and very of-the-era.
• Mabel — #222 for girls; from Latin amabilis, “lovable,” a cheerful flapper name climbing quietly back.
• Hattie — #382 for girls; a vintage short form of Harriet, all front-porch warmth and 1920s spirit.
• Edith — #528 for girls; Old English, “prosperous in war,” a grandmother name with real backbone.
• Vivienne — #184 for girls; the French elaboration of Vivian, lacy and a touch glamorous.

On the boys’ side, these distinguished and old-fashioned names sound like they were signing contracts in 1925. A couple are rarer than they once were; I will say so.

• Arthur — #105 for boys; bookish, kingly, fully back in style.
• Walter — #271 for boys; the steady ruler-of-the-army name, climbing again.
• Frank — #468 for boys; honest and four-square, from the Frankish tribe by way of “free man.”
• Harold — #988 for boys; Old Norse and Old English, “army ruler,” just hanging on in the rankings — a true grandfather revival if you want to be early.
• Cornelius — a grand Roman family name (and a real Vanderbilt, very fitting for old East-Coast money); it is uncommon today, a bold and formal choice rather than a common one.

Bold but usable: dialing up the glamour

If the chart-toppers feel too safe, the Jazz Age offers names with more risk and more reward. These are real, sayable, and spellable — they just ask a little more confidence. I have flagged the cost on each.

These glorious and rich picks lean fully into the gold-and-marble side of the decade.

• Zelda — the boldest pick on the board, after Fitzgerald’s dazzling, troubled wife Zelda Fitzgerald; uncommon and unmistakably a statement, with a strong video-game association (the Nintendo princess) to weigh — not a downside for everyone, but know it is there.
• Gloria — Latin for “glory,” a shimmering flapper name (think Gloria Swanson) that is uncommon now and ready for a comeback for the brave.
• Beatrice — from Latin beatus, “blessed,” stately and Dantean; quiet in the current data, but rich enough to carry a child for life.
• August — Latin augustus, “venerable, majestic”; uncommon as a given name and grand without being stiff, with a nice late-summer warmth.
• Josephine — #56 for girls but worth repeating here for the snap of Jo, a name that lets a girl be both ornate and tomboy in one breath.

Admire on the page, not on the birth certificate

Finally, the honest bottom tier — the names that make The Great Gatsby sing but should stay between its covers. Loving a thing is not the same as naming a child after it.

• Gatsby — pure surname-as-affectation; it works as a symbol and a brand, not as a first name a person carries to a job interview.
• Myrtle — lovely etymology (Venus’s evergreen), but it reads dated and faintly comic today; admire it, do not assign it.
• Buchanan, Carraway, Baker — the great surnames of the novel; atmospheric on the page, but as first names they stay costume rather than name.

The takeaway is the one Fitzgerald would have appreciated: most of these names are not relics. They are on a hundred-year orbit, and a lot of them have just come back around. Whether you reach for a sure thing like classic Theodore and Eleanor, a timeless Daisy or Clara, or a bolder retro swing like Zelda or Gloria, you are not borrowing from a costume drama. You are catching a name on its way back into the light.