1980s Baby Names

17,873 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

#686
Jennie Jennie began as a Scottish pet form of Jean and only later attached to Jennifer, which is a Cornish name with no connection to it.
6,496 in the 1980s
#687
Brandie
6,493 in the 1980s
#688
Ruby Ruby is a girl's name of Latin origin naming the red gemstone, from ruber, meaning red.
6,451 in the 1980s
#691
Clarissa Clarissa means bright, and it names one of the longest novels in English — Richardson's Clarissa runs to about a million words, which makes it longer than the whole of Proust in most editions.
6,385 in the 1980s
#695
Elena Elena is a girl's name of Greek origin, the Italian, Spanish, and Russian form of Helen.
6,343 in the 1980s
#696
Tessa Tessa is a girl's name that grew out of Theresa and is now used independently.
6,330 in the 1980s
#698
Marquita
6,288 in the 1980s
#702
Ericka
6,247 in the 1980s
#703
Connie Connie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "steadfast" or "constant."
6,227 in the 1980s
#704
Jasmin Jasmin names a flower whose own name is Persian, and it traveled the length of Eurasia — yasmin passed through Arabic into Europe with the plant itself, arriving as a word and a cutting together.
6,174 in the 1980s
#706
Rita Rita is a girl's name meaning pearl, clipped from the end of Margarita rather than the front.
6,166 in the 1980s
#708
Amie
6,146 in the 1980s
#709
Sally Sally is a girl's name meaning princess, a pet form of Sarah reached by medieval rhyming.
6,143 in the 1980s
#710
Hayley Hayley is a girl's name from an English place name meaning "hay clearing," and it became a girl's name because of one child actress.
6,115 in the 1980s
#713
Joyce Joyce is a girl's name that was a man's name for most of its history, from a Breton saint called Iodoc. Our data marks it stable, and its highest current rank is France at 334th — not any English-speaking market.
5,961 in the 1980s
#714
Becky Becky means to bind, shortened from Rebecca, and the Hebrew is genuinely uncertain — a knotted cord and a snare are both proposed, and the reading has never been settled.
5,936 in the 1980s
#715
Katy
5,931 in the 1980s
#716
Mackenzie Mackenzie means son of Coinneach, and the missing sound is the point — the Gaelic ends in a soft ch that English cannot spell, so the anglicized ending was written as a z that was never pronounced as one.
5,921 in the 1980s
#720
Lyndsey
5,861 in the 1980s
#721
Judith Judith is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "woman of Judea," borne by the heroine who beheads Holofernes in the deuterocanonical book named for her.
5,861 in the 1980s
#722
Alma Alma is a girl's name with several competing origins: "nourishing" in Latin, "soul" in Spanish, and "young woman" in Hebrew.
5,850 in the 1980s
#725
Taryn
5,831 in the 1980s
#726
Tiara
5,787 in the 1980s
#729
Leanne Leanne is a British and Irish name far more than an American one — England peaked at 616 births, Scotland 287 and Ireland 201, against an American high of 801 in a vastly larger population.
5,770 in the 1980s
#731
Latonya
5,754 in the 1980s
#732
Constance Constance is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "steadfastness," one of the abstract virtue names the early Church favored.
5,747 in the 1980s
#733
Alejandra Alejandra means defender of men, and the Spanish form lost a consonant Greek never had trouble with — Alexandros became Alejandro because Spanish shifted the sh sound to the throaty j it uses today.
5,730 in the 1980s
#734
Mia Mia is a girl's name that began as a short form of longer names such as Maria and Amelia before becoming an independent given name in its own right.
5,713 in the 1980s
#735
Angie Angie means messenger, and the Greek root behind it named someone carrying news — the wings and choirs of later Christianity all grew from an ordinary occupational word.
5,713 in the 1980s
#737
Marisol
5,696 in the 1980s
#738
Eileen Eileen is a girl's name anglicizing the Irish Eibhlín, and its meaning is genuinely unsettled — it may render Helen, or Evelyn, or a native Irish name.
5,696 in the 1980s
#739
Gretchen Gretchen means little pearl, and German uses her name for a kind of question — a Gretchenfrage is the awkward essential one you cannot dodge, after the question she puts to Faust about religion.
5,674 in the 1980s
#741
Jenifer
5,670 in the 1980s
#742
Norma Norma is a girl's name that appears to have been invented for an opera — Bellini's Norma of 1831 — and it was the birth name of Marilyn Monroe, who appears elsewhere in these pages under the name that replaced it.
5,667 in the 1980s
#746
Maribel
5,635 in the 1980s
#748
Marilyn Marilyn is a girl's name usually read as a blend of Mary and Lyn.
5,610 in the 1980s
#749
Chrystal
5,603 in the 1980s
#750
Nora Nora is a girl's name that developed as a short form of longer names, chiefly Honora and Eleanor, and is now used independently.
5,584 in the 1980s
#751
Shayla
5,575 in the 1980s
#752
Lakeisha
5,572 in the 1980s
#753
Alyson
5,569 in the 1980s
#754
Nadia Nadia means hope, from the Russian word, and it charts in all seven markets we track — Ireland 293rd, Scotland 312th, Northern Ireland 329th, England and Wales 501st, the United States 565th and France 754th.
5,555 in the 1980s
#755
Christin
5,547 in the 1980s
#757
Madeline Madeline is a girl's name meaning "of Magdala," a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee whose name comes from the Hebrew migdal, a tower.
5,520 in the 1980s
#759
Kylie Kylie is a girl's name usually said to mean "boomerang" in an Australian Aboriginal language.
5,518 in the 1980s
#762
Kira Kira has three unrelated sources — the Irish for dark, a Russian feminine of the Persian for lord, and a Japanese word for glittering — and nothing in the spelling tells you which one a given Kira belongs to.
5,478 in the 1980s
#764
Joanne Joanne is a girl's name meaning God is gracious, one of the many feminines of John.
5,452 in the 1980s
#768
Beverly Beverly is a name from an English town meaning beaver stream, and it began as a boys' name before crossing decisively to girls.
5,424 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.