1990s Baby Names

22,091 names were given to children in the United States between 1990 and 1999, 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

#112
Natalie Natalie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "birthday of the Lord," from natalis.
63,516 in the 1990s
#114
Brooke Brooke is a girl's name from the English word for a small stream.
60,825 in the 1990s
#117
Julia Julia is a girl's name of Latin origin, the feminine of the Roman family name Julius.
60,112 in the 1990s
#123
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.
58,322 in the 1990s
#124
Vanessa Vanessa was invented by Jonathan Swift around 1713, built from the name of a woman he was writing to — and it later became the name of a genus of butterflies.
58,134 in the 1990s
#127
Sydney Sydney is a name from a French place name — Saint-Denis, contracted by English speakers — and the Australian city was named after a man who bore it.
56,774 in the 1990s
#130
Erica Erica is a girl's name with two independent sources: the feminine of Eric, meaning eternal ruler, and the botanical Latin name of heather.
55,950 in the 1990s
#135
Kristen Kristen is a girl's name meaning a follower of Christ, and in Denmark it is a man's name — the Danish Kristen is masculine and Kirsten the feminine.
53,413 in the 1990s
#136
Katelyn Katelyn is one of five respellings that divided the same sound in the 1990s, and Ireland ranks it 292nd — far above the United States at 1078th, the reverse of how its sister spelling Kaitlyn behaves.
52,863 in the 1990s
#140
Marissa Marissa is usually explained as of the sea, but that reading comes from the Latin stella maris — a title of the Virgin built on a mistranslation of Miriam that scholars abandoned centuries ago.
51,314 in the 1990s
#141
Amy Amy is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "beloved," and unusually the name is a past participle — someone who has been loved rather than someone lovable.
51,282 in the 1990s
#142
Crystal Crystal is a girl's name from the Greek for ice, taken from the mineral rather than from any personal name.
51,251 in the 1990s
#144
Paige Paige is a girl's name from a medieval job title meaning a young male servant, and it reached women by way of a surname.
50,715 in the 1990s
#146
Cassandra Cassandra is a girl's name from Greek myth, borne by a prophet cursed to see the future and never be believed.
50,448 in the 1990s
#147
Gabrielle Gabrielle is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my strength," the French feminine of Gabriel.
50,049 in the 1990s
#150
Katie Katie is a girl's name of Greek origin, a diminutive of Katherine whose meaning has never been settled.
49,527 in the 1990s
#151
Lindsey Lindsey is a girl's name from a district of Lincolnshire, and it originally meant an island — Lindsey was cut off by marsh and river, so the wetland reading and the island reading describe the same place.
49,402 in the 1990s
#153
Caitlin Caitlin is a girl's name of Greek origin, the Irish form of Katherine, and its English mispronunciation generated a whole family of new names.
49,128 in the 1990s
#154
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.
48,406 in the 1990s
#157
Kathryn Kathryn is a girl's name, the y-spelling of Katherine, and it inherits that name's genuinely unknown meaning.
47,237 in the 1990s
#160
Jacqueline Jacqueline is a girl's name, the French feminine of Jacques, and it inherits the meaning supplanter from Jacob.
46,108 in the 1990s
#161
Jenna Jenna is a girl's name that began as an elaboration of Jenny and is now used independently.
45,909 in the 1990s
#163
Angela Angela is a girl's name from the Greek for messenger, the word that also gives us angel.
45,312 in the 1990s
#165
Savannah Savannah is a girl's name of Taino origin meaning "treeless plain."
44,755 in the 1990s
#166
Mariah Mariah shows the sharpest single-artist effect in our data.
44,684 in the 1990s
#169
Alexandria Alexandria is the city before it is the name — Alexander founded it in 331 BC, and the feminine given name was formed from the place rather than directly from Alexandra, which took a different route.
44,183 in the 1990s
#170
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.
43,746 in the 1990s
#171
Alicia Alicia is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "noble," a Latinate form of Alice.
43,592 in the 1990s
#173
Briana Briana is a feminine of Brian, and it first appears in Spenser's Faerie Queene in 1590 — which makes it one of very few names whose earliest recorded use is a specific poem.
42,904 in the 1990s
#176
Miranda Miranda was coined by Shakespeare for The Tempest around 1611, from the Latin for to be wondered at.
42,275 in the 1990s
#183
Catherine Catherine is a girl's name of Greek origin whose meaning is genuinely unknown — the familiar reading of pure is a later reshaping, not the original sense.
40,843 in the 1990s
#185
Brittney Brittney means from Brittany, and Brittany means from Britain — so the name records Britons who fled to France, making it a British name that came home by way of Normandy and a respelling.
40,100 in the 1990s
#186
Breanna Breanna is a feminine of Brian invented in twentieth-century America, and Brian's own meaning is not settled — high or noble is the usual reading and it has never been established.
40,056 in the 1990s
#187
Grace Grace is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "favor" or "blessing," from gratia.
39,925 in the 1990s
#189
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.
39,303 in the 1990s
#190
Monica Monica is a girl's name whose meaning is genuinely unknown, and whose saint — the mother of Augustine — came from Roman North Africa, so the name may be Berber rather than Latin or Greek at all.
39,060 in the 1990s
#191
Sabrina Sabrina is the Latin name of the River Severn, and the legend behind it is a drowning — a princess thrown into the river became its spirit.
38,747 in the 1990s
#195
Madeline Madeline is a girl's name meaning "of Magdala," a fishing town on the Sea of Galilee whose name comes from the Hebrew migdal, a tower.
37,004 in the 1990s
#196
Caroline Caroline is a girl's name of Germanic origin meaning "free man," the French feminine of Charles by way of the Latin Carolus.
36,872 in the 1990s
#199
Molly Molly is a girl's name of Hebrew origin, a pet form of Mary whose meaning has never been settled — the candidates are "bitter" and "beloved."
36,628 in the 1990s
#206
Erika Erika means ever-ruler, the feminine of Erik — and it is also the botanical name for heather, which is a separate Greek word that happens to match.
35,204 in the 1990s
#209
Leah Leah is a girl's name of Hebrew origin whose meaning is disputed, most often given as "weary" but also linked to a word for wild cow.
34,138 in the 1990s
#212
Diana Diana is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "divine" or "heavenly," the Roman goddess of the hunt and the moon.
33,996 in the 1990s
#216
Whitney Whitney was already climbing before Whitney Houston, and the debut album accelerated it rather than starting it — 1,632 births in 1982, 2,488 by 1984, then 4,068 in 1985 and 9,781 in 1986.
33,188 in the 1990s
#220
Cheyenne Cheyenne is not the Cheyenne people's own name for themselves — it is a Sioux word meaning red speakers, applied from outside.
32,754 in the 1990s
#222
Christine Christine is a girl's name from the Latin for a follower of Christ, the French form of Christina.
31,725 in the 1990s
#223
Lindsay Lindsay and Lindsey are the same place — a district of Lincolnshire that was effectively an island in fen.
31,594 in the 1990s
#224
Meghan Meghan means pearl, through Megan and Margaret, and the h is an American addition — Welsh spells it Megan, and the extra letter appeared in twentieth-century American use with no basis in the original.
31,528 in the 1990s

What made a 1990s name

Nothing about the sound of it. A name is on this page because children in the United States were registered with it between 1990 and 1999, and its position is simply how many. Every list of "1990s 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.