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

#289
Ricky Ricky is a boy's name, the pet form of Richard or Ricardo, meaning strong ruler.
20,397 in the 1980s
#290
Christy Christy serves both Christine and Christopher, so it is used for both sexes — 98 percent of the births in our records are female, but the masculine use remains ordinary in Ireland.
20,350 in the 1980s
#291
Francisco Francisco means Frenchman, and Saint Francis was given it as a nickname — his father traded in France and called him the little Frenchman.
20,293 in the 1980s
#292
Kristopher Kristopher means Christ-bearer, and the legend built the meaning backward — a giant who carried a child across a river turned out to be carrying Christ, which is the story explaining the name.
20,229 in the 1980s
#293
Danny Danny is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my judge," a diminutive of Daniel.
20,196 in the 1980s
#294
Dominique Dominique is a French name meaning of the Lord, given to children born on a Sunday.
20,182 in the 1980s
#295
Manuel Manuel is a boy's name meaning God is with us, the Spanish short form of Emmanuel.
20,180 in the 1980s
#296
Jenny Jenny began as a pet form of Jane, not Jennifer — the two attached to each other only in the twentieth century, and Jennifer was almost unknown outside Cornwall before 1900.
19,851 in the 1980s
#297
Lawrence Lawrence is a boy's name meaning from Laurentum, an ancient Italian town linked to the laurel.
19,815 in the 1980s
#298
Jimmy Jimmy is a boy's name, the pet form of James, meaning supplanter.
19,711 in the 1980s
#299
Jonathon Jonathon respells Jonathan, and the original names a gift — Yahweh has given, borne in scripture by the friend whose bond with David the text describes in terms it uses nowhere else.
19,711 in the 1980s
#300
Randall Randall is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning shield-wolf.
19,675 in the 1980s
#301
Tabitha Tabitha means gazelle, and it is Aramaic rather than Hebrew — one of a small set of New Testament names from the everyday language of first-century Judaea.
19,660 in the 1980s
#302
Lance Lance does not mean a spear.
19,573 in the 1980s
#303
Colleen Colleen means girl in Irish, and it is barely used in Ireland — it is an Irish-American name rather than an Irish one.
19,562 in the 1980s
#304
Meredith Meredith is a Welsh man's name that turned female in America — 95 percent of the births in our records are female, and the Welsh Maredudd it comes from was borne by princes of Deheubarth.
19,392 in the 1980s
#305
Barbara Barbara is a girl's name from the Greek for foreign or strange, the feminine of the word that gives us barbarian.
19,252 in the 1980s
#306
Angelica Angelica is both a name and a plant, and the plant is named for the angel — a medieval legend has one reveal it as a cure during plague, which is why it was grown in monastery gardens.
19,234 in the 1980s
#307
Micheal Micheal is a boy's name of Hebrew origin whose full form is a rhetorical question — who is like God?
19,108 in the 1980s
#308
Carolyn Carolyn is a girl's name, an English elaboration of Caroline meaning free man through Charles.
18,729 in the 1980s
#309
Mathew Mathew drops a t from Matthew, and the doubled t was never in the Hebrew — it entered through the Greek and Latin spellings, so the shorter form is arguably closer to the original.
18,725 in the 1980s
#310
Albert Albert is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "noble and bright."
18,634 in the 1980s
#311
Isaac Isaac is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he laughs," from Yitzhak.
18,518 in the 1980s
#312
Ebony Ebony reached English from ancient Egyptian, which makes it one of the oldest borrowings in the language — hbny passed into Greek and Latin with the timber itself, and English kept both the wood and the word.
18,464 in the 1980s
#313
Rebekah Rebekah is the spelling the King James Bible uses for the Old Testament, while the New Testament in the same book uses Rebecca — one translation, two spellings, and English inherited both.
18,402 in the 1980s
#314
Deanna Deanna was popularized by a stage name — the actress born Edna Mae Durbin was renamed Deanna Durbin in 1936, and American births rose from almost nothing to a peak of 4,331 in 1970.
18,209 in the 1980s
#315
Roger Roger is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning famous spear.
18,129 in the 1980s
#316
Tonya Tonya is a short form of Antonia, and its meaning is unknown — the Roman family name Antonius has no established derivation, and the flower reading widely given for it is a Renaissance invention.
18,044 in the 1980s
#317
Rodney Rodney is a boy's name from an English place name, and its rise as a given name follows a single admiral — George Rodney, who broke the French line at the Saintes in 1782.
18,043 in the 1980s
#318
Caroline Caroline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man," the French feminine of Charles by way of the Latin Carolus.
18,033 in the 1980s
#319
Roberto Roberto means bright fame, the Italian and Spanish form of Robert, and both halves of the compound mean roughly the same thing — which is normal in Germanic naming rather than a redundancy.
17,973 in the 1980s
#320
Jon Jon is a boy's name meaning God is gracious, and it is both an English shortening of Jonathan and the standard Scandinavian and Catalan form of John — two routes to the same three letters.
17,858 in the 1980s
#321
Colin Colin has two entirely separate origins — a French pet form of Nicolas, and the Scottish Gaelic Cailean.
17,822 in the 1980s
#322
Kristi Kristi is the fifth spelling of this name to appear in our gap band — after Kristin, Kristen, Kristina and Kristine, all of them American-led despite the form being Scandinavian.
17,749 in the 1980s
#323
Walter Walter is a boy's name from Germanic elements meaning ruler of the army.
17,718 in the 1980s
#324
Kari Kari descends from the same unexplained Greek root as Kaitlin in this group, but by a Scandinavian route — through Karen and Katarina rather than through Irish, and the pure gloss is equally unproven on both paths.
17,681 in the 1980s
#325
Clinton Clinton means the settlement on the hill, from an English place name — and the two American presidents who carried it did so by adoption and by surname, not by descent from the place.
17,642 in the 1980s
#326
Michele Michele is a girl's name, the single-l spelling of Michelle, from a Hebrew question meaning who is like God.
17,636 in the 1980s
#327
Louis Louis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior."
17,531 in the 1980s
#328
Willie Willie is a pet form of William meaning resolute protector, and one of the more genuinely mixed names in our records — a quarter of the births we hold are female, which is unusual for a name read today as male.
17,350 in the 1980s
#329
Brianna Brianna is a girl's name, the feminine of Brian, whose Irish meaning has never been securely established.
17,172 in the 1980s
#330
Bridget Bridget means exalted one, and it belonged to a goddess before a saint — Brigid was the Irish deity of poetry, smithcraft and healing, and the saint absorbed her feast, her fire and her attributes.
17,160 in the 1980s
#331
Clayton Clayton means the settlement on clay, from an English place name that describes the ground it stood on.
17,041 in the 1980s
#332
Arthur Arthur is a boy's name of disputed origin.
16,951 in the 1980s
#333
Chase Chase is a boy's name of Old French origin meaning "huntsman."
16,802 in the 1980s
#334
Sharon Sharon is a girl's name taken from a place rather than a person — the fertile coastal plain of Sharon in Israel, known from the rose of Sharon in the Song of Songs.
16,780 in the 1980s
#335
Marie Marie is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, the French form of Mary, and the largest name in our entire dataset with more than 2.8 million births on record.
16,737 in the 1980s
#336
Joe Joe is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he will add," a short form of Joseph that has become the English word for an ordinary person.
16,727 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.