The Depression ends, World War II begins and ends - and the Cold War begins. Frank Sinatra is a rising star and everyone is watching Casablanca and A Miracle on 34th Street. As this decade ends, 125,000 American homes have a television set.

Read on to see what people were naming their babies in the 1940s.

Boys

• James
• Robert
• John
• William
• Richard
• David
• Charles
• Thomas
• Michael
• Ronald
• Larry
• Donald
• Joseph
• Gary
• George
• Kenneth
• Paul
• Edward
• Jerry
• Dennis

Girls

• Mary
• Linda
• Barbara
• Patricia
• Carol
• Sandra
• Nancy
• Judith
• Sharon
• Susan
• Betty
• Carolyn
• Shirley
• Margaret
• Karen
• Donna
• Judy
• Kathleen
• Joyce
• Dorothy

All names are from Social Security card applications for births that occurred in the United States at the end of February 1950. The most popular names of the 1940s were taken from a universe that includes 15,135,321 male births and 14,887,352 female births.