1980s Baby Names

17,980 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

#577
Leticia Leticia means joy, and Napoleon's mother carried it — Letizia Ramolino outlived her son and was styled Madame Mère de l'Empereur, a title created for her alone.
8,239 in the 1980s
#578
Charity
8,228 in the 1980s
#579
Angelina Angelina means little angel, and the Greek root behind it means a messenger — the winged being is a later idea layered onto a word for someone carrying news.
8,227 in the 1980s
#580
Alissa Alissa means noble, and the flower it resembles was named for rabies — alyssum joins the Greek negative to lyssa, madness, because the plant was believed to cure the bite of a mad dog.
8,222 in the 1980s
#582
Kristie
8,150 in the 1980s
#584
Brianne
8,122 in the 1980s
#588
Jade Jade is a girl's name from the gemstone, and its origin is unexpectedly medical: the Spanish called it piedra de la ijada, "stone of the flank," because it was believed to cure kidney and abdominal ailments.
8,028 in the 1980s
#589
Tamika
7,987 in the 1980s
#591
Gabriela Gabriela means God is my strength, and the archangel behind it is the one who announces rather than fights — Gabriel delivers the message in both Daniel and Luke, and in Islamic tradition brings the Qur'an.
7,937 in the 1980s
#593
Eva Eva is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "life" or "living."
7,899 in the 1980s
#595
Katharine Katharine is the spelling closest to the Greek, and that Greek has never been explained — the pure gloss comes from a later association with katharos, clean, applied long after the name existed.
7,871 in the 1980s
#597
Terri Terri shortens Teresa, whose meaning has never been established — harvester, summer and a Greek island are all proposed and none of them is settled.
7,839 in the 1980s
#598
Miriam Miriam is the origin of Mary, Maria, Marie, Maureen, Marion and Molly — the largest name family in Europe — and it still charts in all seven markets, with its top four inside 46 places of each other.
7,793 in the 1980s
#600
Elise Elise is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath," a short form of Elizabeth.
7,779 in the 1980s
#601
Yvette Yvette is a girl's name from a Germanic word for the yew tree, by way of Breton.
7,764 in the 1980s
#609
Hope Hope is a girl's name of Old English origin taken from the virtue, from hopian.
7,641 in the 1980s
#610
Carissa
7,639 in the 1980s
#612
Latisha
7,628 in the 1980s
#617
Elisabeth Elisabeth is a girl's name meaning God is my oath, and the s-spelling is the older one — it follows the Greek and German, while the English z is a later change.
7,532 in the 1980s
#618
Janice Janice is a girl's name usually credited to a 1899 novel, though it is on record from 1894 — five years before the book.
7,529 in the 1980s
#619
Maggie Maggie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "pearl."
7,514 in the 1980s
#623
Jane Jane is a girl's name from the Hebrew for God is gracious, the English feminine of John.
7,503 in the 1980s
#627
Breanna Breanna is a feminine of Brian invented in twentieth-century America, and Brian's own meaning is not settled — high or noble is the usual reading and it has never been established.
7,399 in the 1980s
#628
Alice Alice is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "noble," arrived at by a long contraction of Adelaide.
7,370 in the 1980s
#629
Rochelle Rochelle means little rock, and it is a place rather than a person — La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast was a Huguenot stronghold, and the name reached English through the town rather than any saint.
7,342 in the 1980s
#631
Tabatha
7,289 in the 1980s
#633
Jana Jana ranks 223rd in France and 1,245th in the United States, and its French peak of 485 births came in 2019 — a Slavic form of John that is currently doing better in France than in any English-speaking market.
7,285 in the 1980s
#642
Allyson Allyson descends from Alice by way of a French diminutive, and it is not Alice plus son — the ending is the Old French -on, the same one behind Marion, and nothing in it refers to a child.
7,206 in the 1980s
#644
Dorothy Dorothy is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "gift of God."
7,165 in the 1980s
#645
Irene Irene is a girl's name from the Greek word for peace, and the name of the goddess who personified it.
7,159 in the 1980s
#646
Elaine Elaine is a girl's name, the Old French form of Helen, whose meaning was never established.
7,150 in the 1980s
#647
Maureen Maureen is the Irish Máirín, a diminutive of Máire, which is itself the Irish form of Mary.
7,144 in the 1980s
#648
Annette Annette is a girl's name meaning grace, a French diminutive of Anne.
7,129 in the 1980s
#649
Chasity
7,109 in the 1980s
#651
Tricia Tricia and Trisha are the same name a syllable apart, and both shorten Patricia — which makes four spellings of one Latin word on this site, alongside Patty and Patti.
7,107 in the 1980s
#654
Staci
7,064 in the 1980s
#655
Cecilia Cecilia is a girl's name of Latin origin from the Roman family name Caecilius, which derives from caecus, meaning blind.
7,062 in the 1980s
#656
Camille Camille is a unisex name of Latin origin, from a Roman word for a young attendant at religious ceremonies.
7,054 in the 1980s
#657
Bobbie Bobbie is 83 percent female on record and England and Wales ranks it 523rd on 110 births — far above the United States at 2,072nd, reversing what an American nickname-name would usually do.
7,009 in the 1980s
#658
Kathy Kathy is a girl's name, the pet form of Katherine, and it inherits that name's unknown meaning.
7,006 in the 1980s
#662
Antoinette Antoinette means little Antoine, and the meaning usually given for the parent name — flower — is a false etymology.
6,946 in the 1980s
#663
Alana Alana is a girl's name whose origin is disputed.
6,935 in the 1980s
#664
Shelley Shelley means a clearing on a ledge, and it has nothing to do with shells — the poet's surname records a patch of high ground in Suffolk or Sussex, not anything from a beach.
6,898 in the 1980s
#666
Keisha
6,892 in the 1980s
#667
Tanisha
6,825 in the 1980s
#668
Elisa Elisa means my God is an oath, shortened from Elizabeth, and France ranks it 202nd — its strongest market, ahead of England and Wales at 377th, Ireland at 382nd and the United States at 458th.
6,797 in the 1980s
#669
Lesley Lesley is the Scottish spelling and Scotland proves it — a peak of 341 births there in 1974, far above what the country's size would predict against an American high of 981.
6,778 in the 1980s
#676
Faith Faith is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "trust" or "belief," one of the virtue names the Puritans put into use in the sixteenth century.
6,685 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.