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

#901
Rick Rick means brave ruler, shortened from Richard — and the medieval habit of rhyming pet names is why Rick also produced Dick, which is the same name with a different first letter.
4,269 in the 1980s
#906
Rolando
4,252 in the 1980s
#907
Roland Roland is a boy's name meaning famous land, and its bearer is the hero of France's national epic — a knight who dies at Roncevaux because he is too proud to blow his horn for help.
4,250 in the 1980s
#912
Darin
4,201 in the 1980s
#913
Jarred
4,201 in the 1980s
#916
Oliver Oliver is a boy's name that entered England with the Normans and has a disputed origin.
4,185 in the 1980s
#919
Cornelius
4,153 in the 1980s
#920
Saul Saul means asked for, and the Hebrew Bible appears to have attached his wordplay to the wrong man — the puns on asking in the birth of Samuel fit Sha'ul far better than they fit Shemuel.
4,147 in the 1980s
#929
Sam Sam is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God has heard," a short form of Samuel.
4,110 in the 1980s
#930
Pierre Pierre is a boy's name, the French form of Peter, from the Greek for rock.
4,094 in the 1980s
#937
Owen Owen is a boy's name of Welsh origin, the anglicized form of Owain.
4,068 in the 1980s
#940
Gilberto
4,048 in the 1980s
#941
Stefan
4,047 in the 1980s
#942
Dominick Dominick means of the Lord, and it was given to children born on a Sunday — dies dominica is the Lord's day, and the name records the day of birth rather than a hope for the child.
4,044 in the 1980s
#945
Carlton Carlton means the settlement of the free peasants, and the word for those peasants became an insult — ceorl gave English churl and churlish, so the name preserves a class that the language later turned against.
4,027 in the 1980s
#946
Clay Clay means the earth a potter works, and it carries a creation story in almost every tradition — Genesis forms Adam from the ground, and Mesopotamian and Egyptian accounts do the same with clay.
4,021 in the 1980s
#948
Colton Colton is a boy's name of English origin meaning "coal town" or "Cola's settlement," from a place name.
4,001 in the 1980s
#949
Harrison Harrison is a boy's name of English origin meaning "son of Harry."
3,987 in the 1980s
#951
Roman Roman is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "citizen of Rome," from Romanus.
3,982 in the 1980s
#954
Rogelio
3,967 in the 1980s
#955
Blaine
3,964 in the 1980s
#956
Freddie Freddie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "peaceful ruler."
3,954 in the 1980s
#957
Donnie Donnie ranks 563rd in Ireland and 1,804th in the United States, so the country with a fraction of the births ranks it three times higher — a pattern we see when a name goes home.
3,948 in the 1980s
#960
Jamaal
3,919 in the 1980s
#962
Diego Diego is a boy's name of Hebrew origin, the Spanish form of James.
3,912 in the 1980s
#967
Rusty
3,874 in the 1980s
#968
Jimmie Jimmie means supplanter, shortened from James, and about 17 percent of recorded births are female — a much higher share than most nickname-names of this shape, which usually resolve firmly to one side or the other.
3,866 in the 1980s
#970
Rashad
3,833 in the 1980s
#972
Jeff Jeff means peace, shortened from Geoffrey — but the first element of that compound is disputed between three different Germanic words, so only the peace half of the name is agreed on by the sources.
3,814 in the 1980s
#976
Tyrell
3,786 in the 1980s
#979
Ty Ty has no source of its own — it shortens Tyler, Tyrone and Tyson, three names with nothing in common, so which one a given Ty belongs to cannot be read off the name.
3,752 in the 1980s
#980
Milton Milton means the mill settlement, and there is a second and quite separate source meaning the middle settlement — two entirely different Old English place names that ended up producing exactly the same modern spelling.
3,750 in the 1980s
#981
Antwan
3,749 in the 1980s
#983
Hugo Hugo is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "mind" or "spirit."
3,742 in the 1980s
#986
Gene Gene means well-born, shortened from Eugene — and it has nothing at all to do with genes in biology, which is a separate word coined in 1909 from a different Greek root entirely, by a Danish botanist.
3,726 in the 1980s
#987
Kristian
3,722 in the 1980s
#996
Donte
3,688 in the 1980s
#999
Alonzo Alonzo is the Spanish descendant of a Visigothic name, and it is rising — 511th in the United States, 1,186th in Canada, 1,324th in France and 1,714th in England and Wales, having peaked as recently as 2022, which is unusual for a name birth records carry from 1880.
3,664 in the 1980s
#1,001
Guy Guy is a boy's name from a Germanic word probably meaning wood or wide, and one of very few names to have become an ordinary English noun — through Guy Fawkes, whose effigies gave the word its modern sense.
3,640 in the 1980s
#1,008
Greg Greg means watchful, and the Greek is a command rather than a description — gregorein means stay awake, which early Christians took as an instruction about the second coming.
3,608 in the 1980s
#1,011
Esteban Esteban is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "crown," the Spanish form of Stephen, whose bearer was the first Christian martyr.
3,592 in the 1980s
#1,013
Lester Lester means from Leicester, and the spelling is the honest one — Leicester has been pronounced LES-ter for centuries, so the surname simply wrote down what people had been saying to each other all along.
3,587 in the 1980s
#1,020
Giovanni Giovanni is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is gracious," the Italian form of John.
3,544 in the 1980s
#1,021
Forrest Forrest is one of only two names in this group birth records mark as rising, and it is on its second life — American births ran 490 in 2018 and 862 in 2025, having collapsed from a 1994 peak twenty years before.
3,542 in the 1980s
#1,022
Mike Mike is a boy's name, the short form of Michael, from a Hebrew question meaning who is like God.
3,535 in the 1980s
#1,029
Nathanael Nathanael is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God has given," and it is the same name as Nathaniel with the spelling closer to the Greek.
3,526 in the 1980s
#1,030
Darrin
3,526 in the 1980s
#1,032
Floyd Floyd is the same name as Lloyd, and the F is a mistake that stuck — English had no way to say the Welsh double L, so it substituted the closest sound it had, and the substitution became a separate name.
3,506 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.