1990s Baby Names

3,360 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

#19
Taylor Taylor is an occupational surname meaning one who cuts cloth, now used mostly for girls at 72 percent female.
227,448 in the 1990s
#26
Jordan Jordan is a name from the river, whose Hebrew name Yarden means "to descend" or "flow down" — the Jordan drops sharply from its source to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the earth's land surface.
206,513 in the 1990s
#44
Alexis Alexis is a Greek name meaning helper or defender, and it is genuinely split by country: a boys' name in France, where it ranks 256th, and majority female in the United States.
147,461 in the 1990s
#66
Morgan Morgan is a Welsh name meaning sea-born, and it charts in all seven markets we track within a range of just over three hundred places — one of the most evenly distributed names on this site.
101,296 in the 1990s
#119
Kelly Kelly is a name from the Irish surname Ó Ceallaigh, borne almost entirely by men for most of its history and now 86 percent female in our data.
59,862 in the 1990s
#129
Angel Angel is a name of Greek origin meaning "messenger," from angelos.
56,491 in the 1990s
#131
Dakota Dakota means friend or ally in the Dakota language, and it is one of very few widely used names taken from an Indigenous North American language.
55,800 in the 1990s
#133
Casey Casey is a name of Irish origin meaning "vigilant" or "watchful."
55,154 in the 1990s
#145
Jamie Jamie is a unisex name of Hebrew origin, a Scottish diminutive of James meaning "supplanter" or "holder of the heel."
50,531 in the 1990s
#148
Shannon Shannon is a name from Ireland's longest river, and it is 86 percent female in our records.
49,758 in the 1990s
#178
Bailey Bailey is a name of Old French origin meaning "bailiff" or "steward."
41,547 in the 1990s
#200
Devon Devon is the English county, named for the Dumnonii — a Celtic people whose own name may mean the deep ones, possibly referring to mining.
36,230 in the 1990s
#208
Dominique Dominique is a French name meaning of the Lord, given to children born on a Sunday.
34,630 in the 1990s
#219
Ariel Ariel means lion of God, and The Little Mermaid moved it hard and briefly.
32,804 in the 1990s
#235
Riley Riley is a name with two origins that converged. The Irish line comes from Ó Raghallaigh, an Anglicized surname, while the English line names a place meaning "rye clearing," from the Old English ryge and leah.
29,075 in the 1990s
#237
Leslie Leslie is a Scottish place name turned surname turned given name, and it has crossed sexes: about 71 percent of the births in our records are female, though the name began firmly male and remains so in Britain.
28,729 in the 1990s
#309
Drew Drew shortens Andrew, meaning manly, and there is a second unrelated Drew from a Germanic word for a ghost or phantom.
21,487 in the 1990s
#310
Dana Dana is a name with several unrelated sources — a Danish origin, a Hebrew feminine of Daniel, and an Irish mother goddess.
21,407 in the 1990s
#313
Jocelyn Jocelyn began as a man's name for a Germanic tribe — the Gauts — and turned female in twentieth-century America. About 90 percent of the births in our records are now female.
21,007 in the 1990s
#319
Kendall Kendall means the valley of the River Kent, and Scotland ranks it 309th — above the United States at 329th, which is unusual for a name whose modern use is almost entirely American.
20,469 in the 1990s
#336
Jaime Jaime is 41 percent female in our records, one of the most genuinely divided names on this site — Spanish reads it as James, and English hears it as a spelling of Jamie.
19,444 in the 1990s
#337
Jessie Jessie is a name that arrives from two unrelated directions — the Scottish pet form of Janet, and a feminine of the Hebrew Jesse.
19,440 in the 1990s
#353
Hayden Hayden is a name of Old English origin meaning "hay valley" or "hedged hill."
17,920 in the 1990s
#355
Skyler Skyler is Dutch and means a scholar — it respells Schuyler, a surname carried by one of New York's founding families, and it has nothing to do with the sky despite the spelling.
17,753 in the 1990s
#358
Chandler Chandler means a candle maker, and the trade left a grander word behind — the same French root gives chandelier, so the humblest medieval occupation names the most ornate fitting in the house.
17,396 in the 1990s
#361
Parker Parker is a name of English origin meaning "park keeper."
17,180 in the 1990s
#368
Micah Micah is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "who is like Yahweh?" — a rhetorical question expecting the answer that nobody is.
16,967 in the 1990s
#377
Ashton Ashton is a name of Old English origin meaning "ash tree settlement."
16,639 in the 1990s
#387
Avery Avery is a name of English origin meaning "elf counsel," derived from the Norman French form of the Germanic name Alberich.
16,156 in the 1990s
#406
Kasey Kasey means vigilant, and it is one of the more evenly divided names on this site — 73 percent of the births in our records are female, against an Irish surname that was of course carried by both.
14,895 in the 1990s
#407
Skylar Skylar is a name of Dutch origin meaning "scholar."
14,871 in the 1990s
#423
Guadalupe Guadalupe is half Arabic and half Latin — wadi, a valley or river, joined to a word for a wolf.
14,490 in the 1990s
#438
Terry Terry is a name serving as a short form of Terence and of the Germanic Theodoric, two unrelated names, and it is genuinely mixed — about 18 percent of the births in our records are female.
13,792 in the 1990s
#441
Peyton Peyton is a name of Old English origin meaning "Pæga's settlement."
13,707 in the 1990s
#443
Dallas Dallas is the only rising name in this group — it peaked in 2015 and is still climbing, at 238th in the United States.
13,670 in the 1990s
#464
Aubrey Aubrey is a name of Germanic origin meaning "elf ruler."
12,910 in the 1990s
#484
Payton Payton means Pæga's farm, from an English place name — and it is 71 percent female in our records, having crossed over from an entirely masculine surname within a generation.
12,019 in the 1990s
#490
Harley Harley is a name of Old English origin meaning "hare's meadow."
11,844 in the 1990s
#523
Robin Robin is a name of Germanic origin meaning "bright fame."
10,810 in the 1990s
#527
Sidney Sidney is a name of Old English origin meaning "wide meadow."
10,793 in the 1990s
#537
Camille Camille is a unisex name of Latin origin, from a Roman word for a young attendant at religious ceremonies.
10,498 in the 1990s
#551
Lee Lee is a name from the Old English word for a woodland clearing, and it is one of the most productive elements in English place names — the ending of Ashley, Bradley, Shirley and Beverly.
10,246 in the 1990s
#567
Stacy Stacy comes from Eustace or Anastasia, two unrelated names, and its meanings are correspondingly different — fruitful or resurrection.
9,944 in the 1990s
#574
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.
9,848 in the 1990s
#598
Justice
9,444 in the 1990s
#600
Tracy Tracy is a Norman place name that became a surname, then a boys' name, then overwhelmingly a girls' name — about 81 percent of the births in our records are female.
9,402 in the 1990s
#603
Darian
9,330 in the 1990s
#648
Sasha Sasha is a unisex name of Greek origin meaning "defender of men," the Russian familiar form of Alexander.
8,490 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.