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

#289
Desiree Desiree means desired, and it began as a Puritan virtue name rather than a French one — Desiderius was a late Roman Christian name for a longed-for child, and French inherited it before English did.
23,527 in the 1990s
#290
Tara Tara is a girl's name from the hill in County Meath where the High Kings were inaugurated, and its meaning is a place of assembly.
23,421 in the 1990s
#291
Michaela Michaela is a question, not a statement — the Hebrew behind it asks who is like God, which was a rhetorical challenge rather than a claim, and the answer it expects is nobody.
23,218 in the 1990s
#292
Brandi Brandi respells Brandy, and the drink behind it means burned wine — the Dutch brandewijn described wine heated to distill it.
23,007 in the 1990s
#293
Troy Troy is a boy's name with two independent sources — an Irish surname meaning foot soldier, and the ancient city.
22,991 in the 1990s
#294
Kylie Kylie is a girl's name usually said to mean "boomerang" in an Australian Aboriginal language.
22,849 in the 1990s
#295
Carly Carly means free man, and the Germanic word named a free peasant rather than a lord — so a name that now reads as light and modern began at the bottom of the free classes.
22,843 in the 1990s
#296
Karina Karina means pure or beloved depending on which parent it takes, and neither has a settled meaning — Catherine's Greek original was never derived, and the Latin route gives a different sense entirely.
22,724 in the 1990s
#297
Adriana Adriana means from Hadria, a small town in northern Italy that also named the Adriatic Sea — so both the name and the sea are called after a settlement most people have never heard of.
22,469 in the 1990s
#298
Edgar Edgar is a boy's name meaning wealthy spear, and it is one of very few Old English names still in wide use.
22,356 in the 1990s
#299
Javier Javier means the new house, and it is Basque rather than Spanish — Saint Francis Xavier was named for his family's castle at Xabier, so the name is a place that became a surname and then a first name.
22,269 in the 1990s
#300
Valerie Valerie is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "strong" or "healthy," from the verb valere, meaning to be strong or to be well.
22,051 in the 1990s
#301
Jade Jade is a girl's name from the gemstone, and its origin is unexpectedly medical: the Spanish called it piedra de la ijada, "stone of the flank," because it was believed to cure kidney and abdominal ailments.
22,029 in the 1990s
#302
Douglas Douglas is a boy's name from the Scottish Gaelic for dark water, originally a river and then a powerful border family.
22,022 in the 1990s
#303
Natasha Natasha means born on Christmas day, and it is a Russian pet form rather than a full name — Natalya is the formal version, and Russians would not use Natasha on a document.
22,006 in the 1990s
#304
Caitlyn Caitlyn is the third spelling of one name on this site, alongside Caitlin and Kaitlin — all descend from Catherine by way of Old French and Irish, and all three are large enough to hold separate pages.
22,003 in the 1990s
#305
Hayley Hayley is a girl's name from an English place name meaning "hay clearing," and it became a girl's name because of one child actress.
21,881 in the 1990s
#306
Clayton Clayton means the settlement on clay, from an English place name that describes the ground it stood on.
21,864 in the 1990s
#307
Cassidy Cassidy means curly-haired, from an Irish surname — and Scotland ranks it 416th, above Northern Ireland at 464th and the United States at 541st, with Ireland itself back at 807th.
21,559 in the 1990s
#308
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.
21,488 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
#311
Andre Andre is a boy's name, the French form of Andrew, from the Greek for manly.
21,288 in the 1990s
#312
Nicolas Nicolas is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "victory of the people."
21,262 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 recorded births are now female.
21,007 in the 1990s
#314
Maxwell Maxwell is a boy's name of Scottish origin meaning "Mack's pool."
20,955 in the 1990s
#315
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.
20,934 in the 1990s
#316
Ivan Ivan is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is gracious."
20,665 in the 1990s
#317
Levi Levi is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "joined" or "attached."
20,519 in the 1990s
#318
Philip Philip is a boy's name from Greek elements meaning lover of horses.
20,497 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
#320
Sergio Sergio means servant, from a Roman family name that is probably Etruscan — and Virgil gave the Sergii a Trojan ancestor, which is the Aeneid doing genealogical work for Rome's aristocracy.
20,254 in the 1990s
#321
Gabriella Gabriella is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my strength," the Italian feminine of Gabriel.
20,192 in the 1990s
#322
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.
20,180 in the 1990s
#323
Makayla Makayla is one of a large family of respellings of Michaela, and the name underneath is a question — Michael means who is like God, expecting the answer nobody.
20,109 in the 1990s
#324
Cristian Cristian drops the h from Christian, and the h was never in the Greek pronunciation anyway — it marks a letter that Latin borrowed as a digraph, so the Spanish and Romanian spelling is the plainer one.
20,099 in the 1990s
#325
Daisy Daisy is a girl's name of English origin naming the flower, and its meaning is unusually literal: daisy comes from the Old English dægesege, "day's eye," because the flower opens its petals at dawn and closes them at dusk.
20,096 in the 1990s
#326
Alison Alison means little Alice, and Alice means noble — but the Norman name behind it is a heavy compression of the Germanic Adalheidis, so the noble is all that survived of a longer compound.
19,794 in the 1990s
#327
Andres Andres is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "manly" or "brave."
19,793 in the 1990s
#328
Darius Darius means holding firm the good, and we know that because the king said so — the Behistun inscription has Darius the Great explain his own name and reign in three languages, carved on a cliff face.
19,770 in the 1990s
#329
Jillian Jillian means youthful, and it descends from the same Roman family name as July — Julius, Julia, Jill and Jillian all come from the gens that claimed descent from Venus.
19,761 in the 1990s
#330
Nancy Nancy is a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "grace."
19,633 in the 1990s
#331
Raven Raven means the bird, and the bird was a war omen before it was a goth accessory — Norse and Anglo-Saxon poetry lists the raven with the wolf and the eagle as the beasts that follow an army.
19,631 in the 1990s
#332
Fernando Fernando means bold journey, and it is Germanic rather than Spanish — the Visigoths brought it to Iberia, where it became the royal name of Castile and Aragon and then traveled to the Americas.
19,601 in the 1990s
#333
Hector Hector is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "holding fast," borne by the Trojan prince who is the most sympathetic figure in the Iliad.
19,598 in the 1990s
#334
Audrey Audrey is a girl's name of Old English origin meaning "noble strength," from Æthelthryth.
19,594 in the 1990s
#335
Faith Faith is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "trust" or "belief," one of the virtue names the Puritans put into use in the sixteenth century.
19,563 in the 1990s
#336
Jaime Jaime is 41 percent female on record, one of the most divided names on this site — Spanish reads it as James, and English hears it as a spelling of Jamie.
19,444 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.