1980s Baby Names

10,009 names were given to children in the United States between 1980 and 1989, ranked below by how many.

A name's place is its total across those ten years. Names that appear in only some of the decade say so, because a name recorded once is a different fact from one recorded every year.

All Girls Boys Unisex

Rankings for

#1,305
Jamison
2,349 in the 1980s
#1,306
Will Will means will-helmet, and the compound is stranger than it looks — the Germanic joins desire to a piece of armor, so the name reads as protection by determination.
2,349 in the 1980s
#1,310
Amos
2,321 in the 1980s
#1,312
Jan Jan is 66 percent female on record because two unrelated uses collide — it is the ordinary man's name for John across Dutch, Polish and Czech, and a woman's short form of Janet and Janice in English.
2,319 in the 1980s
#1,313
Conrad Conrad set its American peak in the most recent year on record, 2025, on 770 births — a name birth records carry from 1880 reaching its high point a hundred and forty-five years later.
2,319 in the 1980s
#1,316
Ahmad Ahmad is a boy's name of Arabic origin meaning "most praiseworthy".
2,314 in the 1980s
#1,317
Deshawn
2,305 in the 1980s
#1,322
Quintin
2,283 in the 1980s
#1,324
Barrett Barrett is a boy's name of disputed origin.
2,276 in the 1980s
#1,326
Sherman
2,274 in the 1980s
#1,328
Jerod
2,270 in the 1980s
#1,337
Reed Reed is a boy's name of English origin meaning "red" — a nickname for someone with red hair or a ruddy complexion.
2,241 in the 1980s
#1,340
Otis Otis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "wealth" or "fortune."
2,237 in the 1980s
#1,342
Demario
2,235 in the 1980s
#1,344
Marcel Marcel is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "little warrior," a diminutive of Marcus and so ultimately from Mars.
2,226 in the 1980s
#1,345
Alton Alton means the settlement at the river's source, and that is more specific than the old town reading usually given — the Old English element is a spring or wellhead, not age.
2,226 in the 1980s
#1,350
Ignacio
2,209 in the 1980s
#1,354
Cristian Cristian drops the h from Christian, and the h was never in the Greek pronunciation anyway — it marks a letter that Latin borrowed as a digraph, so the Spanish and Romanian spelling is the plainer one.
2,202 in the 1980s
#1,357
Garret
2,197 in the 1980s
#1,359
Bryson Bryson is a boy's name of Scottish origin meaning "son of Brice."
2,194 in the 1980s
#1,366
Rigoberto
2,179 in the 1980s
#1,368
Jaron
2,175 in the 1980s
#1,374
Davon
2,144 in the 1980s
#1,380
Markus
2,136 in the 1980s
#1,383
Colt Colt is a boy's name taken from the English word for a young male horse, from the Old English colt.
2,128 in the 1980s
#1,385
Bradly
2,116 in the 1980s
#1,386
Leland Leland means fallow land — ground deliberately left unplowed for a season.
2,115 in the 1980s
#1,389
Arron
2,102 in the 1980s
#1,394
Rodrigo Rodrigo is a Spanish and Portuguese boy's name meaning "famous ruler."
2,093 in the 1980s
#1,399
Davis
2,080 in the 1980s
#1,401
Hugh Hugh is a boy's name from a Germanic word for mind or spirit, brought to Britain by the Normans.
2,080 in the 1980s
#1,402
Coty
2,077 in the 1980s
#1,405
Mauricio
2,072 in the 1980s
#1,414
Bo Bo is a boy's name of Scandinavian origin meaning "to live" or "to dwell".
2,052 in the 1980s
#1,415
Keegan Keegan descends from a pagan god, not a small flame — Aodh was the Irish deity of fire and the sun, and the diminutive gloss softens a name that originally invoked him.
2,049 in the 1980s
#1,418
Claude Claude is a name from a Roman family name meaning lame, one of very few widely used names with an unflattering literal sense.
2,046 in the 1980s
#1,426
Sylvester Sylvester means of the woods, and a pope carried it into the calendar — Sylvester I died on 31 December, which is why New Year's Eve is still called Silvester across much of Europe.
2,024 in the 1980s
#1,427
Royce Royce is a boy's name from an English surname meaning "son of Roy" or "son of Rose."
2,020 in the 1980s
#1,430
Ron
2,013 in the 1980s
#1,431
Joesph
2,012 in the 1980s
#1,435
Winston Winston is a boy's name of English origin meaning "Wine's settlement", from an Old English personal name plus tun.
2,004 in the 1980s
#1,438
Earnest Earnest respells Ernest, and the Germanic behind it is not mild — eornost meant vigor in battle, seriousness of the deadly kind, long before it settled into the sense of being sincere.
2,000 in the 1980s
#1,441
Tom Tom is a boy's name of Aramaic origin meaning "twin," a short form of Thomas used as a full name across Europe.
1,984 in the 1980s
#1,443
Morris Morris means dark-skinned, from the Latin for a Moor — and the morris dance carries the same word, having been thought to imitate Moorish dancing when it reached England.
1,980 in the 1980s
#1,445
Nathanial
1,978 in the 1980s
#1,447
Edmund Edmund was England's patron saint before George — Edmund the Martyr, king of East Anglia, was killed by a Viking army in 869 and held that position for some three hundred years before a crusader saint displaced him.
1,975 in the 1980s
#1,448
Santos
1,964 in the 1980s
#1,449
Pete Pete means rock, and it began as a joke about a man's character — Jesus renames Simon as Cephas, the Aramaic for a stone, and the pun works in Greek but not in English.
1,964 in the 1980s

What Made a 1980s Name

Children in the United States were registered with it between 1980 and 1989. A name's position here is how many of them were.

Why Some Names Only Cover Part of the Decade

A name that appears in three of the ten years either arrived partway through or faded out — and either is more interesting than the total on its own. The statistics offices do not publish names given to very few children in a year, so a gap can also mean the count dropped below the threshold rather than to nothing.

Where to Go Next

Open any name to see its full curve — most of these have a hundred and forty years of it. Or compare the ends of the same measurement: the most popular names now and the rarest.