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

#525
Alissa Alissa means noble, and the flower it resembles was named for rabies — alyssum joins the Greek negative to lyssa, madness, because the plant was believed to cure the bite of a mad dog.
10,803 in the 1990s
#529
Katlyn
10,718 in the 1990s
#530
Tamara Tamara means date palm, and the tree mattered more than the fruit — in the ancient Near East a date palm was a standing symbol of uprightness and fertility.
10,710 in the 1990s
#531
Ruby Ruby is a girl's name of Latin origin naming the red gemstone, from ruber, meaning red.
10,693 in the 1990s
#533
Theresa Theresa is a girl's name of uncertain meaning, the German and English spelling of Teresa.
10,606 in the 1990s
#534
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.
10,602 in the 1990s
#535
Ashlyn Ashlyn has two possible sources and they disagree completely — the Irish aisling means a dream or vision, while the English reading is simply an ash-tree clearing.
10,586 in the 1990s
#543
Kiana
10,368 in the 1990s
#544
Esmeralda Esmeralda is not the character's name in the novel — Hugo's girl is christened Agnès and called Esmeralda for the green amulet she wears, so the name most readers know her by is a nickname.
10,356 in the 1990s
#545
Carrie Carrie is a girl's name, a pet form of Caroline meaning free man through Charles.
10,315 in the 1990s
#548
Kelli Kelli respells Kelly, an Irish surname whose meaning is contested — bright-headed and strife are both proposed for Ó Ceallaigh, and neither has ever been established.
10,263 in the 1990s
#549
Alexus
10,260 in the 1990s
#552
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.
10,235 in the 1990s
#553
Angelina Angelina means little angel, and the Greek root behind it means a messenger — the winged being is a later idea layered onto a word for someone carrying news.
10,210 in the 1990s
#556
Marina Marina means of the sea, and it charts in five markets inside 276 places — Scotland 572nd, England and Wales 581st, the United States 602nd, Ireland 647th and France 848th, which is an unusually even international spread.
10,194 in the 1990s
#557
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.
10,173 in the 1990s
#559
Cecilia Cecilia is a girl's name of Latin origin from the Roman family name Caecilius, which derives from caecus, meaning blind.
10,152 in the 1990s
#561
Miriam Miriam is the origin of Mary, Maria, Marie, Maureen, Marion and Molly — the largest name family in Europe — and it still charts in all seven markets we track, with its top four inside 46 places of each other.
10,141 in the 1990s
#565
Jacquelyn Jacquelyn means supplanter, and the chain is long — it is an American respelling of Jacqueline, the French feminine of Jacques, which is James, which is Jacob.
10,036 in the 1990s
#568
Carolina Carolina means free man, and two American states carry it — both Carolinas are named for Charles I in Latin, so a Germanic word for a peasant ended up on the map through a king.
9,885 in the 1990s
#569
Candice Candice is not a name but a title — Kandake was the word for the queen mother of Kush, and Acts records one without naming her, so a royal office became a personal name by misreading.
9,883 in the 1990s
#570
Virginia Virginia is a girl's name from a Roman family name, and the American state was named before the name became common in America — both honoring Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen.
9,879 in the 1990s
#571
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.
9,864 in the 1990s
#573
Cara Cara is a girl's name with two independent sources: the Italian cara, meaning "dear" or "beloved," and the Irish cara, meaning "friend."
9,849 in the 1990s
#575
Gloria Gloria is a girl's name that is simply the Latin word for glory, taken unchanged.
9,844 in the 1990s
#577
Kennedy Kennedy is a name of Irish origin meaning "helmeted head" or "ugly head," from the Gaelic ceann, head, and éidigh.
9,826 in the 1990s
#578
Celeste Celeste is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "heavenly."
9,820 in the 1990s
#580
Martha Martha is a girl's name of Aramaic origin meaning "lady" or "mistress of the house."
9,809 in the 1990s
#581
Lily Lily is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "lily flower," from lilium.
9,772 in the 1990s
#582
Kelsie
9,766 in the 1990s
#586
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.
9,715 in the 1990s
#587
Elise Elise is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath," a short form of Elizabeth.
9,712 in the 1990s
#588
Janet Janet is a girl's name, a Scottish diminutive of Jane meaning God is gracious.
9,707 in the 1990s
#589
Charlotte Charlotte is a girl's name of French origin meaning "free man," the feminine form of Charles, itself from the Germanic name Karl.
9,696 in the 1990s
#591
Stacey Stacey is the e-spelling of Stacy, from Eustace or Anastasia.
9,667 in the 1990s
#594
Elena Elena is a girl's name of Greek origin, the Italian, Spanish, and Russian form of Helen.
9,517 in the 1990s
#595
Cassie Cassie is a girl's name of Greek origin, usually short for Cassandra, whose curse was to prophesy truly and never be believed.
9,465 in the 1990s
#597
Esther Esther is a girl's name usually connected to the Persian word for star, and possibly to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar.
9,447 in the 1990s
#599
Callie Callie is a girl's name of Greek origin meaning "beautiful."
9,416 in the 1990s
#602
Kate Kate is a girl's name of Greek origin, a short form of Katherine whose meaning has never actually been established.
9,355 in the 1990s
#604
Shayla
9,278 in the 1990s
#605
Kylee Kylee has no agreed source, and it is not a feminine of Kyle — the -lee ending was attached to a Ky- opening in twentieth-century America, and any Gaelic meaning offered for it arrived afterward.
9,240 in the 1990s
#606
Alana Alana is a girl's name whose origin is disputed.
9,220 in the 1990s
#607
Brenna
9,202 in the 1990s
#611
Alondra Alondra means lark, and a Roman legion was named for the bird — Caesar raised the Legio V Alaudae in Gaul and it took the lark's name, probably from crested plumes on the helmets.
9,109 in the 1990s
#613
Genesis Genesis is a name taken from the Greek word genesis, meaning "origin" or "beginning."
9,094 in the 1990s
#616
Savanna
9,048 in the 1990s
#617
Alexia Alexia means defender, and it is also a clinical term — alexia is the medical name for acquired inability to read, from the same Greek root by a completely separate route.
9,039 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.