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

#673
Roderick Roderick means famous ruler, and its most consequential bearer lost a country — Roderic was the last Visigothic king of Spain, defeated in 711 by the Arab and Berber force that then held most of the peninsula for centuries.
6,709 in the 1980s
#674
Ernesto Ernesto means serious in the deadly sense — the Germanic eornost named vigor in a fight, and the modern in earnest still keeps that force, meaning for real rather than in play.
6,696 in the 1980s
#675
Jami
6,686 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
#677
Dallas Dallas is the only rising name in this group — it peaked in 2015 and is still climbing, at 238th in the United States.
6,673 in the 1980s
#678
Lorena Lorena is a place before it is a person — Lorraine is the land of Lothar, a Frankish king whose kingdom was carved out of Charlemagne's empire and named after him directly.
6,663 in the 1980s
#679
Stuart Stuart means steward, and the office was literally the sty warden — keeper of the pigs — which rose to run the royal household and then supplied the name of a dynasty.
6,653 in the 1980s
#680
Destiny Destiny is a word name meaning a fixed future, and its root is a verb about standing firm — the Latin destinare means to make fast or fix in place, so the idea is settled rather than foreseen.
6,615 in the 1980s
#681
Juanita Juanita is a girl's name meaning God is gracious, the Spanish diminutive of Juana.
6,593 in the 1980s
#682
Blair Blair is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin meaning "plain" or "field."
6,588 in the 1980s
#683
Heath
6,586 in the 1980s
#684
Bernard Bernard is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning brave as a bear.
6,563 in the 1980s
#685
Darnell
6,500 in the 1980s
#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
#689
Clifton Clifton means the settlement by the cliff, and it is the same first element as Clifford — one describes a ford below the cliff and the other the farm on top of it.
6,430 in the 1980s
#690
Quentin Quentin is a boy's name meaning fifth — a Roman birth-order name, given to a fifth child or one born in the fifth month.
6,411 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
#692
Israel Israel means he wrestles with God, and it is a name given after a fight — Jacob receives it in Genesis having wrestled a stranger until dawn and refused to let go without a blessing.
6,384 in the 1980s
#693
Damon Damon means one who tames, and the story attached to it is about friendship — Damon and Pythias each offered to die in the other's place, which persuaded a tyrant to release them both.
6,370 in the 1980s
#694
Brock Brock means badger, and it is one of the oldest animal words in English — a Celtic borrowing that entered Old English before the Norman Conquest and survives in dialect to this day.
6,350 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
#697
Angelo Angelo means messenger, and it charts in all seven markets within a 365-place spread — the United States 304th, France 343rd, Northern Ireland 397th, Scotland 522nd, England and Wales 569th and Ireland 669th.
6,298 in the 1980s
#698
Marquita
6,288 in the 1980s
#699
Loren Loren means from Laurentum, a town rather than a plant — the laurel reading came second, and the town itself was probably named for its laurels, so the connection is real but runs the long way round.
6,286 in the 1980s
#700
Charlie Charlie is a name of Germanic origin meaning "free man."
6,274 in the 1980s
#701
Collin Collin doubles the L of Colin, and the name underneath has two unrelated sources — a French pet form of Nicolas, and the Scottish Gaelic Cailean, which share nothing but a spelling.
6,249 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
#705
Lamar
6,172 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
#707
Patrice Patrice is masculine in French and feminine in English — the same spelling, opposite sexes on either side of the Channel.
6,164 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
#711
Landon Landon is a boy's name of English origin meaning "long hill," from the Old English lang, long, and dun, a hill or down.
6,063 in the 1980s
#712
Hunter Hunter is a name of English origin meaning "one who hunts."
6,055 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. It is 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 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
#717
Norman Norman means a Northman — a Viking.
5,901 in the 1980s
#718
Trenton Trenton means Trent's town, and the Trent is a man rather than the English river — William Trent bought the land in 1714, and the New Jersey city was named for him, not for the water.
5,900 in the 1980s
#719
Lewis Lewis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior," the English form of Louis.
5,900 in the 1980s
#720
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

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.