How would I find out the most common names in 1945…
for the U.S., Britain, Germany, Russian, Poland, and the Ukraine?
I know, I know. Tall order. But I’m having trouble digging up this kind of info, so I thought I’d check here. Additionally, I do not speak Russian, Polish, or Ukrainian, so I may have trouble translating cyrillic letters.
NameVoyager might help for US names. Don’t know about the other countries.
From the U.S. Social Security Administration:
Most Popular Names in 1945
Rank — Male name — Percent of total males — Female name — Percent of total females
1 James 5.4281% Mary 4.4054%
2 Robert 5.1041% Linda 3.0844%
3 John 4.8238% Barbara 2.8423%
4 William 3.6608% Patricia 2.6638%
5 Richard 3.3598% Carol 2.2574%
6 David 2.7082% Sandra 1.8338%
7 Charles 2.3690% Nancy 1.5946%
8 Thomas 2.3231% Sharon 1.5468%
9 Michael 2.1851% Judith 1.4990%
10 Ronald 1.7231% Susan 1.4271%
11 Larry 1.6649% Betty 1.3671%
12 Donald 1.6143% Carolyn 1.2807%
13 Gary 1.5561% Judy 1.2634%
14 Joseph 1.5174% Shirley 1.1997%
15 George 1.4089% Margaret 1.1663%
16 Kenneth 1.3180% Karen 1.1658%
17 Paul 1.2416% Donna 1.1429%
18 Edward 1.1580% Joyce 1.0352%
19 Dennis 1.0939% Kathleen 1.0261%
20 Jerry 1.0693% Dorothy 0.9160%
Note: Rank 1 is the most popular, rank 2 is the next most popular, and so forth.
Note: Rank 1 is the most popular, rank 2 is the next most popular, and so forth.
Finding statistics on first names in the Soviet Union during World War II broken down by individual republic would be a research task of considerable proportions. Polish names would be tough too. Recordkeeping during WWII there wasn’t a priority over say, staying alive.
Walloon, except for Carl, Phillip, and Alice, you have listed everyone in my first grade class.
English birth certificates from 1837 to 1983 are indexed at Ancestry.com (a subscriber website; many libraries have subscriptions). But the database is only searchable, not really browsable. You could search for a common English surname like “Brown” in 1945, and then count the various first names that are attached. E.g., in the first quarter of 1945 I find with the surname Brown: 17 Alan, 6 Andrew, 17 Ann/Anne, 19 Anthony, 9 Barbara, 38 Carol/Carole.
Not scientific, but you get a general idea of popular first names.
I don’t know of a source for Germany, but as a very rough approximation you can Google for person articles at de.wikipedia.org: site:de.wikipedia.org +Deutscher +“Geboren 1945”. (also Wikipedia category of more than 600 people born in 1945, but this includes many non-Germans) Of course this Wikipedia subset is biased towards “notable” people and hence towards names chosen by middle/upper class parents.
In Soviet Union, records keep you! 
This is for Germany:
The General Register Office for England and Wales, the national office for vital records registrations, may be able to help you with the 1945 names. Here is their report on babies’ names in 2005.