1980s Baby Names

30,334 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

#481
Emma Emma is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "whole" or "universal," from the element ermen, found in older names such as Ermintrude.
10,443 in the 1980s
#482
Melody Melody is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "song" or "singing," from melodia.
10,433 in the 1980s
#483
Marisa Marisa is a blend rather than an inherited name — Italian joined Maria to Luisa, and the result reads as though it means sea, which it does not, since Maria's own meaning is unsettled.
10,388 in the 1980s
#484
Nicolas Nicolas is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "victory of the people."
10,345 in the 1980s
#485
Preston Preston means the priest's settlement — land held by the church rather than by a lord, which is why so many English places carry the name.
10,324 in the 1980s
#486
Glenn Glenn is a boy's name from the Gaelic word for a narrow valley, and like Craig and Dale it is a plain landscape noun.
10,305 in the 1980s
#487
Ellen Ellen is a girl's name of Greek origin, a medieval English form of Helen whose meaning has never been settled.
10,280 in the 1980s
#488
Alberto Alberto means bright nobility, and both halves are compliments — the Germanic joins a word for noble descent to one meaning bright or famous, with nothing descriptive about the person at all.
10,171 in the 1980s
#489
Andres Andres is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "manly" or "brave."
10,171 in the 1980s
#490
Shanna
10,166 in the 1980s
#491
Justine Justine means just or fair, from the Latin word behind justice — and it ranks 407th in France against 3738th in the United States, which is one of the widest market splits anywhere in this group.
10,114 in the 1980s
#492
Britney
10,070 in the 1980s
#493
Jeanette Jeanette means God is gracious, a French double diminutive of Jeanne.
10,011 in the 1980s
#494
Shana
10,011 in the 1980s
#495
Barry Barry is a boy's name from an Irish surname generally traced to a word for a spear, though a Welsh island gives a competing route.
10,005 in the 1980s
#496
Sasha Sasha is a unisex name of Greek origin meaning "defender of men," the Russian familiar form of Alexander.
9,980 in the 1980s
#497
Randi
9,960 in the 1980s
#498
Ashleigh Ashleigh peaked far higher in England than in America — 1,133 births in England and Wales in 1996 against a US high of 1,717, in a country with roughly a fifth of the population.
9,945 in the 1980s
#499
Marco Marco means dedicated to Mars, and it has the tightest seven-market spread on this site — the United States 370th, Ireland and England both 467th, Scotland 477th, Northern Ireland 501st and France 502nd, all inside 132 places.
9,921 in the 1980s
#500
Rose Rose is a girl's name of Latin origin naming the flower, from rosa.
9,909 in the 1980s
#501
Raquel Raquel means ewe, and the animal is the point — Rachel is a shepherd in Genesis, met at a well while watering her father's flock, so the name and the story match exactly.
9,879 in the 1980s
#502
Emmanuel Emmanuel is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is with us."
9,879 in the 1980s
#503
Debra Debra is a girl's name, the phonetic respelling of Deborah, from the Hebrew for bee.
9,854 in the 1980s
#504
Amelia Amelia is a girl's name most often explained as a blend of two older names: the Germanic Amalia, meaning "work" or "industrious," and the Latin Emilia, from the Roman family name Aemilius.
9,770 in the 1980s
#505
Christie Christie means a follower of the anointed one, and the anointing was a physical act — Christ translates the Hebrew mashiach, both describing oil poured over a king or priest at his installation.
9,754 in the 1980s
#506
Bryant Bryant means noble or high, and the t is a French accident — Norman scribes added it to the Irish Brian, so the surname carries a letter the original name never had.
9,748 in the 1980s
#507
Byron Byron means at the cattle sheds — a working place name that became shorthand for romantic poetry, which is a longer journey than most names make.
9,730 in the 1980s
#508
Hillary
9,709 in the 1980s
#509
Clifford Clifford is a boy's name from an English place name meaning a ford by a cliff — a river crossing below a steep bank.
9,650 in the 1980s
#510
Sonia Sonia is not a name in its own right in Russian — it is the everyday pet form of Sofia, and it means wisdom.
9,643 in the 1980s
#511
Karl Karl means free man, and it is the original German spelling behind Charles — the word named a free peasant, so it began at the bottom of the free classes and rose to name emperors.
9,622 in the 1980s
#512
Sheila Sheila is the Irish form of Cecilia, meaning blind — and parents outside Ireland should know it became Australian slang for a woman in the nineteenth century, which is why it barely charts there.
9,585 in the 1980s
#513
Keri
9,564 in the 1980s
#514
Melvin Melvin is a boy's name from a Scottish place name, and the gentle chieftain reading usually given for it is an invention — the source is a Norman family who took their name from Malleville in France.
9,540 in the 1980s
#515
Shelby Shelby is a girl's name from an English place name of Norse formation meaning a willow farm.
9,494 in the 1980s
#516
Julio Julio means downy-bearded, and France ranks it 517th — above the United States at 641st, which is not where a Spanish form of a Roman family name would be expected to lead.
9,454 in the 1980s
#517
Karla Karla means free man, and the Germanic word named a free peasant — so a name that now reads as aristocratic began at the bottom of the free classes and rose to name emperors.
9,449 in the 1980s
#518
Rene Rene is a name from the Latin for reborn, given at baptism to mark spiritual rebirth.
9,416 in the 1980s
#519
Sylvia Sylvia is a girl's name from the Latin for a forest, and the mother of Rome's founders bore it — Rhea Silvia, who was made a Vestal Virgin so she could not produce heirs.
9,401 in the 1980s
#520
Ariel Ariel means lion of God, and The Little Mermaid moved it hard and briefly.
9,330 in the 1980s
#521
Daisy Daisy is a girl's name of English origin naming the flower, and its meaning is unusually literal: daisy comes from the Old English dægesege, "day's eye," because the flower opens its petals at dawn and closes them at dusk.
9,310 in the 1980s
#522
Stanley Stanley is a boy's name of Old English origin meaning "stony clearing."
9,297 in the 1980s
#523
Harold Harold is a boy's name from Norse and Old English elements meaning army ruler, and it belongs to the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, killed at Hastings in 1066.
9,277 in the 1980s
#524
Jackie Jackie is the third most evenly divided name on this site — 48.9 percent of the births in our records are female, behind only Emerson and Riley among names with more than 50,000 births.
9,253 in the 1980s
#525
Cesar Cesar is a boy's name from the Roman family name Caesar, whose own meaning the Romans could not agree on.
9,245 in the 1980s
#526
Jarrod
9,229 in the 1980s
#527
Shelly Shelly means a clearing on a ledge, from an English place name — and it has nothing to do with shells, which is the reading most people assume and no source supports.
9,183 in the 1980s
#528
Dwayne Dwayne means the little dark one, from an Irish surname built on the word for black — the same root that gives Dublin its name, which means the black pool the city grew around.
9,172 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.