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

#1,009
Mariah Mariah shows the sharpest single-artist effect on record.
3,599 in the 1980s
#1,010
Kiara Kiara is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "bright" or "clear."
3,599 in the 1980s
#1,011
Esteban Esteban is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "crown," the Spanish form of Stephen, whose bearer was the first Christian martyr.
3,592 in the 1980s
#1,012
Precious
3,589 in the 1980s
#1,013
Lester Lester means from Leicester, and the spelling is the honest one — Leicester has been pronounced LES-ter for centuries, so the surname simply wrote down what people had been saying to each other all along.
3,587 in the 1980s
#1,014
Luz
3,585 in the 1980s
#1,015
Marcia Marcia means dedicated to Mars, and that god's name is also where the month of March comes from — the Roman year began in March, because that was when the campaigning season opened up again after the winter.
3,583 in the 1980s
#1,016
Darcy Darcy is a name of Norman French origin meaning "from Arcy," a place in Normandy.
3,558 in the 1980s
#1,017
Joan Joan is a girl's name, the medieval English feminine of John meaning God is gracious, and it was once as common as Mary.
3,547 in the 1980s
#1,018
Nikita
3,546 in the 1980s
#1,019
Trina
3,544 in the 1980s
#1,020
Giovanni Giovanni is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is gracious," the Italian form of John.
3,544 in the 1980s
#1,021
Forrest Forrest is one of only two names in this group birth records mark as rising, and it is on its second life — American births ran 490 in 2018 and 862 in 2025, having collapsed from a 1994 peak twenty years before.
3,542 in the 1980s
#1,022
Mike Mike is a boy's name, the short form of Michael, from a Hebrew question meaning who is like God.
3,535 in the 1980s
#1,023
Marsha Marsha is a phonetic respelling of Marcia, and the name underneath is dedicated to Mars — the same god who gives his name to March, when the Roman year and the campaigning season both began.
3,533 in the 1980s
#1,024
Rocio
3,531 in the 1980s
#1,025
Mollie Mollie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, a diminutive of Mary reached through a chain of medieval sound shifts.
3,530 in the 1980s
#1,026
Lynette Lynette entered English through Tennyson, who reshaped a Welsh name for the Idylls of the King — Luned became Lynette, and the spelling he used is the one that survived.
3,529 in the 1980s
#1,027
Sade
3,528 in the 1980s 5 of 10 years
#1,028
Ashly
3,527 in the 1980s
#1,029
Nathanael Nathanael is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God has given," and it is the same name as Nathaniel with the spelling closer to the Greek.
3,526 in the 1980s
#1,030
Darrin
3,526 in the 1980s
#1,031
Kaylee Kaylee is an invented name with no single source — it fuses the Kay and Lee sounds that were already everywhere, and the meanings assigned to it afterwards were reverse-engineered.
3,507 in the 1980s
#1,032
Floyd Floyd is the same name as Lloyd, and the F is a mistake that stuck — English had no way to say the Welsh double L, so it substituted the closest sound it had, and the substitution became a separate name.
3,506 in the 1980s
#1,033
Lashonda
3,502 in the 1980s
#1,034
Celia Celia is a girl's name of Latin origin from the Roman family name Caelius, whose meaning is disputed between "heaven" and a much older Etruscan word.
3,487 in the 1980s
#1,035
Lana Lana is a girl's name with several competing origins — a Hawaiian word for calm, a Slavic short form of Svetlana, and a Hollywood invention of the 1930s.
3,484 in the 1980s
#1,036
Cherie
3,482 in the 1980s
#1,037
Lamont
3,464 in the 1980s
#1,038
Maritza
3,451 in the 1980s
#1,039
Chadwick
3,443 in the 1980s
#1,040
Debbie Debbie is a girl's name meaning bee, a pet form of Deborah.
3,437 in the 1980s
#1,041
Sheldon
3,426 in the 1980s
#1,042
Trey Trey means three, and it is a card and dice word — the trey is the three-spot, which is why the name attached itself to sons who were the third to carry a family name.
3,421 in the 1980s
#1,043
Paris Paris has two unrelated sources — the Trojan prince and the French city — and France barely uses it, ranking the name 7,188th while the United States has it at 592nd and 80 percent female.
3,414 in the 1980s
#1,044
Marion Marion is a French diminutive of Mary that has crossed sexes twice over — it is 81 percent female on record, yet its most famous bearer was John Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison.
3,414 in the 1980s
#1,045
Weston Weston is a boy's name of English origin meaning "western settlement," from the Old English west and tun, meaning an enclosure, farmstead, or village.
3,411 in the 1980s
#1,046
Jerrod
3,410 in the 1980s
#1,047
Lionel Lionel means little lion, and it entered English through Arthurian romance — Sir Lionel is a knight of the Round Table, and the name was rare before the stories carried it.
3,397 in the 1980s
#1,048
Latrice
3,396 in the 1980s
#1,049
Fallon
3,396 in the 1980s 9 of 10 years
#1,050
Salvatore Salvatore means savior, and it is a title rather than a description — Italian Catholic families gave it as a devotional name naming Christ's role directly, in the way Spanish families use Jesús.
3,394 in the 1980s
#1,051
Lucia Lucia is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "light," the feminine of Lucius from lux.
3,385 in the 1980s
#1,052
Dewayne
3,379 in the 1980s
#1,053
Zackary
3,374 in the 1980s
#1,054
Racheal
3,374 in the 1980s
#1,055
Selena Selena means the moon, and its curve has a shape we see nowhere else — American births went 918 in 1994 to 3,840 in 1995, the year Selena Quintanilla was killed on 31 March, then fell back to 2,296 the next year.
3,362 in the 1980s
#1,056
Connor Connor is a boy's name of Irish origin meaning "lover of hounds."
3,360 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.