1990s Baby Names

38,764 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

#721
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.
7,316 in the 1990s
#722
Sonia Sonia is not a name in its own right in Russian — it is the everyday pet form of Sofia, and it means wisdom.
7,282 in the 1990s
#723
Isabelle Isabelle is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my oath."
7,276 in the 1990s
#724
Jerome Jerome is a boy's name meaning sacred name, and it belongs to the scholar who translated the Bible into Latin — the version Western Europe read for over a thousand years.
7,242 in the 1990s
#725
Keegan Keegan descends from a pagan god, not a small flame — Aodh was the Irish deity of fire and the sun, and the diminutive gloss softens a name that originally invoked him.
7,212 in the 1990s
#726
Tina Tina is a girl's name that serves as the tail end of several unrelated names — Christina, Martina, Valentina and Bettina — so its meaning depends entirely on which one a family had in mind.
7,206 in the 1990s
#727
Nelson Nelson means son of Neil, and the admiral made it a given name — it was a surname until Trafalgar, after which parents across the English-speaking world started using it as a first name outright.
7,202 in the 1990s
#728
Chelsie
7,198 in the 1990s
#729
Tierra
7,190 in the 1990s
#730
Nadia Nadia means hope, from the Russian word, and it charts in all seven markets — Ireland 293rd, Scotland 312th, Northern Ireland 329th, England and Wales 501st, the United States 565th and France 754th.
7,146 in the 1990s
#731
Franklin Franklin means a freeholder — a man who owned his land but held no noble rank, a specific medieval class.
7,146 in the 1990s
#732
Myles Myles is a boy's name and a variant spelling of Miles, whose origin is disputed.
7,122 in the 1990s
#733
Shawna Shawna means God is gracious, and it reaches English from Hebrew through four languages — Yochanan to Greek to Latin to Irish Seán, respelled Shawn and then given an American feminine ending.
7,111 in the 1990s
#734
Tucker Tucker is a boy's name of Old English origin meaning "cloth fuller."
7,099 in the 1990s
#735
Josephine Josephine is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "he will add," the French feminine form of Joseph.
7,059 in the 1990s
#736
Cortney
7,044 in the 1990s
#737
Byron Byron means at the cattle sheds — a working place name that became shorthand for romantic poetry, which is a longer journey than most names make.
7,042 in the 1990s
#738
Melvin Melvin is a boy's name from a Scottish place name, and the gentle chieftain reading usually given for it is an invention — the source is a Norman family who took their name from Malleville in France.
6,996 in the 1990s
#739
Neil Neil means champion or cloud, from Irish, and it traveled to Iceland with the Vikings and back to England with the Normans — so the English Neil arrived by way of Scandinavia and France.
6,992 in the 1990s
#740
Macy
6,966 in the 1990s
#741
Kali Kali is a girl's name of Sanskrit origin naming the Hindu goddess, from kala meaning both black and time.
6,960 in the 1990s
#742
Regina Regina is the Latin word for a queen, taken unchanged, and it is still the legal abbreviation in British courts — every criminal case against a defendant is formally Regina versus the accused.
6,927 in the 1990s
#743
Francesca Francesca is a girl's name of Italian origin meaning "free one" or "Frenchwoman."
6,909 in the 1990s
#744
Jarrett
6,908 in the 1990s
#745
Mikaela
6,905 in the 1990s
#746
Devonte
6,900 in the 1990s
#747
Orlando Orlando is Roland with its consonants swapped — Italian moved the r, and the hero of the Song of Roland became the hero of Orlando Furioso, the same man under a rearranged name.
6,897 in the 1990s
#748
Julianna Julianna descends from a Roman family name whose meaning was never settled — downy-bearded and devoted to Jove are both proposed for Julius, and the family's own claim was descent from Venus.
6,894 in the 1990s
#749
Lorena Lorena is a place before it is a person — Lorraine is the land of Lothar, a Frankish king whose kingdom was carved out of Charlemagne's empire and named after him directly.
6,894 in the 1990s
#750
Destinee
6,882 in the 1990s
#751
Kyler Kyler has no agreed source, and the two accounts point in different directions — a Dutch occupational surname for an archer, or simply Kyle with an -er ending attached in America. It is on record from 1922, with almost all volume after 1995.
6,881 in the 1990s
#752
Bryanna
6,847 in the 1990s
#753
Brendon
6,838 in the 1990s
#754
Kailey
6,830 in the 1990s
#755
Roman Roman is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "citizen of Rome," from Romanus.
6,822 in the 1990s
#756
Bria Bria is a girl's name usually explained as a short form of Brianna, though an Italian source is also proposed.
6,783 in the 1990s
#757
Taryn
6,780 in the 1990s
#758
Brianne
6,763 in the 1990s
#759
Emilio Emilio is a boy's name of Latin origin meaning "rival" or "eager."
6,756 in the 1990s
#760
Ismael Ismael is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God will hear," the son of Abraham and Hagar and a prophet in Islam.
6,753 in the 1990s
#761
Jordon
6,720 in the 1990s
#762
Emanuel Emanuel began as a sign rather than a name — Isaiah tells Ahaz that a child will be called God with us as proof of a prophecy, and the phrase became a personal name only afterward.
6,718 in the 1990s
#763
Addison Addison is a name of English origin meaning "son of Adam."
6,714 in the 1990s
#764
Jane Jane is a girl's name from the Hebrew for God is gracious, the English feminine of John.
6,713 in the 1990s
#765
Darryl Darryl does not mean darling.
6,651 in the 1990s
#766
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.
6,639 in the 1990s
#767
Kayleigh Kayleigh is far larger in England than its American figures suggest — 1,206 births in England and Wales in 1996 against a US peak of 1,450, in a country with about a fifth of the population.
6,634 in the 1990s
#768
Alyson
6,614 in the 1990s

What Made a 1990s Name

Children in the United States were registered with it between 1990 and 1999. 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.