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

#529
Erick Erick means ever-ruler, and the K-spelling is the Scandinavian one — Erik the Red named Greenland deliberately to attract settlers, which may be the earliest recorded use of a misleading brand name.
9,095 in the 1980s
#530
Roxanne Roxanne means dawn or bright, and it is Persian rather than Greek — Alexander married Roxana in Bactria, and she and their son were murdered after his death.
9,078 in the 1980s
#531
Leigh Leigh means a woodland clearing, and the same word is hiding at the end of dozens of modern names — the -leigh in Kayleigh and Ashlyn's cousins is this word, borrowed for its sound rather than its sense.
9,048 in the 1980s
#532
Rachelle
9,039 in the 1980s
#533
Tracey Tracey is a Norman place name, not an Irish one — it comes from Tracy in Normandy, and the warrior reading widely given for it has no basis in the French original at all.
9,011 in the 1980s
#534
Kendall Kendall means the valley of the River Kent, and Scotland ranks it 309th — above the United States at 329th, which is unusual for a name whose modern use is almost entirely American.
8,992 in the 1980s
#535
Carol Carol is a girl's name with two independent sources: a short form of Caroline, and the word for a joyful song.
8,981 in the 1980s
#536
Tyson Tyson means son of the firebrand, and it began as an insult — the Old French tison named a hot-tempered man, so the surname records a reputation the family did not choose.
8,980 in the 1980s
#537
Chelsey
8,977 in the 1980s
#538
Tristan Tristan does not mean sad.
8,970 in the 1980s
#539
Charlene Charlene is a girl's name meaning free man, a feminine of Charles.
8,967 in the 1980s
#540
Sierra Sierra means a mountain range, and the Spanish word is literally a saw — ranges were named for the jagged sawtooth profile they cut against the sky.
8,913 in the 1980s
#541
Esther Esther is a girl's name usually connected to the Persian word for star, and possibly to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar.
8,884 in the 1980s
#542
Jocelyn Jocelyn began as a man's name for a Germanic tribe — the Gauts — and turned female in twentieth-century America. About 90 percent of the births in our records are now female.
8,877 in the 1980s
#543
Kirsten Kirsten means a follower of the anointed one, and the anointing is literal — Christ translates the Hebrew mashiach, and both words describe someone smeared with oil at a coronation rather than a divine title.
8,807 in the 1980s
#544
Aubrey Aubrey is a name of Germanic origin meaning "elf ruler."
8,802 in the 1980s
#545
Cole Cole is a boy's name of Old English origin meaning "coal-black" or "swarthy."
8,798 in the 1980s
#546
Stacie Stacie means resurrection, and it is a boys' name by origin — Anastasius was masculine, and the modern name descends from it through Eustace and Anastasia alike.
8,797 in the 1980s
#547
Max Max is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "greatest."
8,796 in the 1980s
#548
Joey Joey is a name of Hebrew origin meaning "God will increase."
8,782 in the 1980s
#549
Abraham Abraham is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "father of many."
8,753 in the 1980s
#550
Savannah Savannah is a girl's name of Taino origin meaning "treeless plain."
8,746 in the 1980s
#551
Guadalupe Guadalupe is half Arabic and half Latin — wadi, a valley or river, joined to a word for a wolf.
8,726 in the 1980s
#552
Lacy
8,699 in the 1980s
#553
Christa
8,682 in the 1980s
#554
Kerri
8,666 in the 1980s
#555
Frances Frances is a girl's name meaning a Frank, or a free one, and the feminine of Francis.
8,656 in the 1980s
#556
Anita Anita is a girl's name, the Spanish diminutive of Ana, meaning grace.
8,645 in the 1980s
#557
Sherry Sherry is a girl's name that appears to have been taken from the wine, whose own name is a corruption of the Spanish town Jerez.
8,641 in the 1980s
#558
Tia Tia peaked far higher in England than its population would predict — 1,050 births in England and Wales in 2004 against an American peak of 1,189, in a country with roughly a fifth of the people.
8,634 in the 1980s
#559
Rhonda Rhonda is a girl's name from a Welsh river valley, and the great spear reading usually given for it is wrong — the Rhondda is named for its own noisiness, not for a weapon.
8,608 in the 1980s
#560
Andy Andy means manly, and the Greek root is the ordinary word for a man — so Andrew is one of the few apostles carrying a Greek name rather than a Hebrew or Aramaic one.
8,572 in the 1980s
#561
Yvonne Yvonne is a girl's name from a Germanic word for the yew tree, by way of Breton.
8,569 in the 1980s
#562
Traci Traci is the most narrowly recorded name in this sweep — every one of its 52,406 births is American, it charts in no market in the current year, and its entire history runs from 1945 to a 1970 peak and down.
8,517 in the 1980s
#563
Charlotte Charlotte is a girl's name of French origin meaning "free man," the feminine form of Charles, itself from the Germanic name Karl.
8,511 in the 1980s
#564
Shauna
8,499 in the 1980s
#565
Karina Karina means pure or beloved depending on which parent it takes, and neither has a settled meaning — Catherine's Greek original was never derived, and the Latin route gives a different sense entirely.
8,486 in the 1980s
#566
Sonya Sonya means wisdom, and the Greek word behind it named a divine attribute before it named a person — Constantinople's great church was dedicated to Holy Wisdom, not to any saint called Sophia.
8,460 in the 1980s
#567
Helen Helen is a girl's name from Greek whose meaning is not settled, though torch and shining are the usual readings.
8,449 in the 1980s
#568
Hilary
8,448 in the 1980s
#569
Cortney
8,445 in the 1980s
#570
Jody Jody serves Judith, Joseph and Jude at once, which is why it is 64 percent female rather than resolving to one side — three unrelated parents pulling in different directions.
8,421 in the 1980s
#571
Yesenia
8,384 in the 1980s
#572
Laurie Laurie is a name meaning laurel, and it is genuinely mixed by country — masculine in Britain as a short form of Laurence, feminine in America as a short form of Laura.
8,355 in the 1980s
#573
Annie Annie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "grace" or "favor."
8,305 in the 1980s
#574
Franklin Franklin means a freeholder — a man who owned his land but held no noble rank, a specific medieval class.
8,295 in the 1980s
#575
Damien Damien is a boy's name meaning to tame, and its saint was a Belgian priest who chose to live in a leper colony and died of the disease.
8,254 in the 1980s
#576
Johanna Johanna means God is gracious, and it heads one of the largest name families in Europe — Jane, Joan, Jean, Janet, Sinead and Siobhan are all the same name arriving by different national routes.
8,240 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.