1980s Baby Names

9,885 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.

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Rankings for

#659
Wade Wade means a river crossing, and there is a second Wade entirely — a Germanic sea giant from Old English legend whose story Chaucer refers to as though everyone knew it, and which is now lost.
6,996 in the 1980s
#660
Marcos Marcos means dedicated to Mars, and the god behind it was not only a war god — Mars presided over agriculture too, which is coherent once you notice that farming and fighting were the same men's seasonal work.
6,987 in the 1980s
#661
Trent Trent means the trespasser, and it is a warning rather than a description — the English river was named for its habit of flooding across its banks and cutting new channels.
6,960 in the 1980s
#665
Dane
6,897 in the 1980s
#670
Isaiah Isaiah is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "Yahweh is salvation," from Yesha'yahu.
6,765 in the 1980s
#671
Johnathon
6,735 in the 1980s
#672
Salvador Salvador means savior, and it names a country and an ocean crossing — El Salvador is the only nation named directly for Christ, and San Salvador was the first island Columbus reached.
6,724 in the 1980s
#673
Roderick Roderick means famous ruler, and its most consequential bearer lost a country — Roderic was the last Visigothic king of Spain, defeated in 711 by the Arab and Berber force that then held most of the peninsula for centuries.
6,709 in the 1980s
#674
Ernesto Ernesto means serious in the deadly sense — the Germanic eornost named vigor in a fight, and the modern in earnest still keeps that force, meaning for real rather than in play.
6,696 in the 1980s
#679
Stuart Stuart means steward, and the office was literally the sty warden — keeper of the pigs — which rose to run the royal household and then supplied the name of a dynasty.
6,653 in the 1980s
#683
Heath
6,586 in the 1980s
#684
Bernard Bernard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave as a bear.
6,563 in the 1980s
#685
Darnell
6,500 in the 1980s
#689
Clifton Clifton means the settlement by the cliff, and it is the same first element as Clifford — one describes a ford below the cliff and the other the farm on top of it.
6,430 in the 1980s
#690
Quentin Quentin is a boy's name meaning fifth — a Roman birth-order name, given to a fifth child or one born in the fifth month.
6,411 in the 1980s
#692
Israel Israel means he wrestles with God, and it is a name given after a fight — Jacob receives it in Genesis having wrestled a stranger until dawn and refused to let go without a blessing.
6,384 in the 1980s
#693
Damon Damon means one who tames, and the story attached to it is about friendship — Damon and Pythias each offered to die in the other's place, which persuaded a tyrant to release them both.
6,370 in the 1980s
#694
Brock Brock means badger, and it is one of the oldest animal words in English — a Celtic borrowing that entered Old English before the Norman Conquest and survives in dialect to this day.
6,350 in the 1980s
#697
Angelo Angelo means messenger, and it charts in all seven markets we track within a 365-place spread — the United States 304th, France 343rd, Northern Ireland 397th, Scotland 522nd, England and Wales 569th and Ireland 669th.
6,298 in the 1980s
#701
Collin Collin doubles the L of Colin, and the name underneath has two unrelated sources — a French pet form of Nicolas, and the Scottish Gaelic Cailean, which share nothing but a spelling.
6,249 in the 1980s
#705
Lamar
6,172 in the 1980s
#711
Landon Landon is a boy's name of English origin meaning "long hill," from the Old English lang, long, and dun, a hill or down.
6,063 in the 1980s
#712
Hunter Hunter is a name of English origin meaning "one who hunts."
6,055 in the 1980s
#717
Norman Norman means a Northman — a Viking.
5,901 in the 1980s
#718
Lewis Lewis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior," the English form of Louis.
5,900 in the 1980s
#719
Trenton Trenton means Trent's town, and the Trent is a man rather than the English river — William Trent bought the land in 1714, and the New Jersey city was named for him, not for the water.
5,900 in the 1980s
#724
Maxwell Maxwell is a boy's name of Scottish origin meaning "Mack's pool."
5,832 in the 1980s
#727
Tanner Tanner names one of the most unpleasant medieval trades — tanneries used urine and dog feces to cure hides, and were forced to the downwind edge of every town by law as well as by smell.
5,776 in the 1980s
#730
Damian Damian is a boy's name of Greek origin, from damao, meaning to tame or subdue.
5,763 in the 1980s
#736
Miles Miles is a boy's name of disputed origin, usually connected to the Latin miles, meaning soldier.
5,704 in the 1980s
#740
Bret
5,671 in the 1980s
#743
Kenny Kenny sits on top of two different Gaelic names that English collapsed into one — Cináed, born of fire, and Coinneach, handsome.
5,663 in the 1980s
#744
Leroy Leroy is a boy's name that is simply the French for the king, taken as one word.
5,650 in the 1980s
#745
Allan Allan has no settled meaning at all — handsome, little rock and a deer are all proposed for the Breton original, and the name reached England through Brittany rather than through Ireland or Scotland at all.
5,647 in the 1980s
#747
Mason Mason is a boy's name of English origin meaning "stone worker."
5,619 in the 1980s
#756
Eli Eli is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "ascent" or "my God," depending on which Hebrew name it represents.
5,539 in the 1980s
#760
Rudy Rudy is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous wolf."
5,499 in the 1980s
#761
Kendrick
5,496 in the 1980s
#763
Desmond Desmond means south Munster, and it is a territory rather than a person — Deas-Mhumhain named the earldom the Fitzgeralds held, and the name reaches modern use through the land.
5,468 in the 1980s
#765
Neal Neal has no agreed meaning — champion, cloud and passionate are all proposed for the Irish Niall and none is established.
5,436 in the 1980s
#766
Simon Simon is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he has heard," borne by the apostle Peter before his renaming.
5,430 in the 1980s
#767
Lonnie Lonnie shortens Alonzo and Alphonso, meaning noble and ready — and the Germanic original reached Spain with the Visigoths, so a name that reads as American South is Gothic by descent.
5,430 in the 1980s
#770
Vernon Vernon is a Norman place name meaning a place of alders, from a Gaulish word — so a French town gave England a surname that America turned into a first name, three languages deep.
5,414 in the 1980s
#772
Zachery
5,403 in the 1980s
#773
Gavin Gavin is a boy's name from the Arthurian Gawain, whose meaning has never been established.
5,399 in the 1980s
#775
Glen Glen means a narrow valley, and it is one of very few Gaelic words that English borrowed wholesale rather than adapting to its own sounds.
5,359 in the 1980s
#776
Felix Felix is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "lucky" or "fortunate."
5,353 in the 1980s
#780
Duane Duane means the little dark one, from an Irish surname built on the word for black — and that same root also gives us Dublin, which means the black pool that the city originally grew up around.
5,279 in the 1980s

What made a 1980s name

Nothing about the sound of it. A name is on this page because children in the United States were registered with it between 1980 and 1989, and its position is simply how many. Every list of "1980s names" you will find elsewhere is somebody's sense of the period; this one is the register.

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.