Re: popular male names of the 1940s...
This is because the figures are based on the Social Security data. When this data was computerized, there were obviously many errors made in typing in the gender code. So, especially before the 70s, most names which were really common for females are going to show up somewhere in the bottom half of the top thousand list for males just because of those errors. So these names are on that list just because of data entry mistakes.