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

#385
Deanna Deanna was popularized by a stage name — the actress born Edna Mae Durbin was renamed Deanna Durbin in 1936, and American births rose from almost nothing to a peak of 4,331 in 1970.
16,234 in the 1990s
#386
Mckenzie Mckenzie means son of Coinneach, and the z was never a z — it replaced a lost Scots letter called yogh, so the name has been mispronounced into its own spelling.
16,218 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
#388
Craig Craig is a boy's name from the Gaelic word for a rock or crag, and one of the few names that is a plain landscape noun rather than a compound.
16,140 in the 1990s
#389
Ashlee Ashlee is the third spelling of one name on this site, alongside Ashleigh and Ashlyn — all descend from the Old English for an ash-tree clearing, and the ash was the tree spears were made from.
16,047 in the 1990s
#390
Larry Larry is a boy's name, the short form of Lawrence, from a Roman name meaning of Laurentum.
16,000 in the 1990s
#391
Diamond
15,987 in the 1990s
#392
Erick Erick means ever-ruler, and the K-spelling is the Scandinavian one — Erik the Red named Greenland deliberately to attract settlers, which may be the earliest recorded use of a misleading brand name.
15,828 in the 1990s
#393
Felicia Felicia means lucky, and the Latin felix meant fertile before it meant fortunate — the word originally described soil and livestock that produced well, and good fortune was a later extension of it.
15,664 in the 1990s
#394
Marisa Marisa is a blend rather than an inherited name — Italian joined Maria to Luisa, and the result reads as though it means sea, which it does not, since Maria's own meaning is unsettled.
15,544 in the 1990s
#395
Colby Colby is a boy's name of Norse origin meaning "Koli's farm," from villages in the English Danelaw.
15,471 in the 1990s
#396
Jasmin Jasmin names a flower whose own name is Persian, and it traveled the length of Eurasia — yasmin passed through Arabic into Europe with the plant itself, arriving as a word and a cutting together.
15,429 in the 1990s
#397
Mercedes Mercedes is a plural, and it means wages before it means mercies — the Latin merces is payment, and the Spanish title Our Lady of Mercies turned a commercial word into a devotional one.
15,376 in the 1990s
#398
Yesenia
15,295 in the 1990s
#399
Krista Krista means a follower of Christ, and it is the sixth spelling of this name family to appear in our gap band — after Kristin, Kristen, Kristina, Kristine and Kristi.
15,219 in the 1990s
#400
Evelyn Evelyn is a girl's name of English and French origin meaning "desired" or "wished for".
15,206 in the 1990s
#401
Brandy Brandy is named for the drink, and the drink means burned wine — the Dutch brandewijn described wine heated to distil it, so the name records a manufacturing process rather than a quality.
15,200 in the 1990s
#402
Cindy Cindy is a girl's name, a pet form of Cynthia, which was a title of the moon goddess Artemis.
15,134 in the 1990s
#403
Selena Selena means the moon, and its curve has a shape we see nowhere else — American births went 918 in 1994 to 3,840 in 1995, the year Selena Quintanilla was killed on 31 March, then fell back to 2,296 the next year.
15,077 in the 1990s
#404
Kaleb Kaleb respells Caleb, and the Hebrew reads as dog — which was not an insult but a claim of loyalty, since Caleb is one of only two spies who trusted the report on Canaan.
14,973 in the 1990s
#405
Gina Gina is not one name — it is the ending of several different ones, and which name it shortens changes the meaning entirely.
14,904 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
#408
Tori Tori means victory through Victoria, and a separate Japanese tori means bird — the two are unrelated, and the shrine gates called torii are a third word again.
14,850 in the 1990s
#409
Carl Carl is a boy's name from the Germanic word for a free man, the same root as Charles.
14,730 in the 1990s
#410
Trenton Trenton means Trent's town, and the Trent is a man rather than the English river — William Trent bought the land in 1714, and the New Jersey city was named for him, not for the water.
14,709 in the 1990s
#411
Jeffery Jeffery is a boy's name whose first element is genuinely disputed, though the second means peace.
14,685 in the 1990s
#412
Raul Raul means wolf counsel, and it is the same name as Ralph and Rudolph — one Norse compound that entered Spanish, English and German separately and ended up looking like three different names.
14,680 in the 1990s
#413
Sebastian Sebastian is a boy's name of Greek origin meaning "from Sebaste," a city whose name derives from sebastos, meaning venerable or august.
14,664 in the 1990s
#414
Mia Mia is a girl's name that began as a short form of longer names such as Maria and Amelia before becoming an independent given name in its own right.
14,636 in the 1990s
#415
Bridget Bridget means exalted one, and it belonged to a goddess before a saint — Brigid was the Irish deity of poetry, smithcraft and healing, and the saint absorbed her feast, her fire and her attributes.
14,612 in the 1990s
#416
Zachery
14,599 in the 1990s
#417
Kassandra
14,545 in the 1990s
#418
Priscilla Priscilla means ancient or venerable, and it is a diminutive — so the name literally reads as little old one, which was a mark of respect rather than an insult.
14,530 in the 1990s
#419
Alisha Alisha means noble, and it is British and Irish rather than American — England and Wales 376th, Ireland 381st and Northern Ireland 407th all rank it far above the United States at 1229th.
14,522 in the 1990s
#420
Louis Louis is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "famous warrior."
14,494 in the 1990s
#421
Anne Anne is a girl's name from the Hebrew Hannah, meaning favor or grace.
14,493 in the 1990s
#422
Rafael Rafael is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God heals."
14,491 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
#424
Marc Marc is a boy's name from a Roman name probably meaning dedicated to Mars, the god of war, and it is the source of the month of March.
14,347 in the 1990s
#425
Hope Hope is a girl's name of Old English origin taken from the virtue, from hopian.
14,329 in the 1990s
#426
Emmanuel Emmanuel is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is with us."
14,268 in the 1990s
#427
Jimmy Jimmy is a boy's name, the pet form of James, meaning supplanter.
14,173 in the 1990s
#428
Cierra
14,064 in the 1990s
#429
Maya Maya is a girl's name with several unrelated origins.
14,002 in the 1990s
#430
Albert Albert is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "noble and bright."
13,986 in the 1990s
#431
Lacey Lacey means from Lassy, a place in Normandy, and Scotland ranks it 308th — its strongest market, ahead of Northern Ireland at 475th and England at 480th, with the United States back at 738th.
13,965 in the 1990s
#432
Danny Danny is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "God is my judge," a diminutive of Daniel.
13,945 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.