Fading Names

Names on the way down. Not a warning: a falling name is a name fewer children in the class will share, and roughly half of the vintage list spent decades here first.

Rankings for

21,065 names, most popular first in the United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Sabrina Sabrina is the Latin name of the River Severn, and the legend behind it is a drowning — a princess thrown into the river became its spirit.
Girl Latin #321 in US
Brady Brady means descendant of Brádach, an Irish byname whose own meaning is not settled — spirited, large-chested and broad-eyed are all proposed, and none is established.
Boy Irish #321 in US
Jorge Jorge is the Spanish and Portuguese form of George, meaning farmer.
Boy Spanish #322 in US
Francisco Francisco means Frenchman, and Saint Francis was given it as a nickname — his father traded in France and called him the little Frenchman.
Boy Spanish #323 in US
Aidan Aidan is a boy's name of Irish origin meaning "little fire," from Aodh, the name of a fire god.
Boy Irish #326 in US
Kaden Kaden is a modern American coinage rather than an inherited name — it belongs to the rhyming set with Aiden, Jaden and Brayden, and the Arabic and Welsh origins offered for it were attached afterwards.
Boy American #328 in US
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.
Unisex English #329 in US
Miley Miley is a girl's name best known from Miley Cyrus, whose own was a nickname from smiley.
Girl English #338 in US
Colin Colin has two entirely separate origins — a French pet form of Nicolas, and the Scottish Gaelic Cailean.
Boy Scottish #343 in US
Annabelle Annabelle is a girl's name of disputed origin.
Girl Latin #344 in US
Paige Paige is a girl's name from a medieval job title meaning a young male servant, and it reached women by way of a surname.
Girl English #346 in US
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.
Girl Italian #347 in US
Sydney Sydney is a name from a French place name — Saint-Denis, contracted by English speakers — and the Australian city was named after a man who bore it.
Girl English #348 in US
Bryce Bryce means speckled or freckled, from a Gaulish saint's name whose meaning is not certain.
Boy Scottish #357 in US
Jaylen Jaylen has no etymology, and the meanings offered for it contradict each other — healer, tranquil, devoted to Jove and supplanter all appear online, which is what happens when sources fill a blank.
Unisex American #361 in US
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.
Boy Spanish #362 in US
Kayla Kayla is a girl's name with no established etymology, an American coinage of the 1950s that a soap opera turned into a top-name.
Girl uncertain #365 in US
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.
Girl Italian #366 in US
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.
Boy Scandinavian #366 in US
Marco Marco means dedicated to Mars, and it has the tightest seven-market spread on this site — the United States 370th, Ireland and England both 467th, Scotland 477th, Northern Ireland 501st and France 502nd, all inside 132 places.
Boy Italian #370 in US
Manuel Manuel is a boy's name meaning God is with us, the Spanish short form of Emmanuel.
Boy Spanish #371 in US
Jordyn Jordyn respells Jordan, and the river came first — the name means flowing down, describing the Jordan's fall from the Galilee hills to the lowest exposed land on earth.
Girl American #371 in US
Mallory Mallory means unlucky, and it is one of very few names built on an insult — the Norman malheuré described someone ill-fated, and it became a surname before anyone used it as a first name.
Girl French #372 in US
Matthias Matthias is a boy's name of Hebrew origin meaning "gift of God".
Boy Hebrew #372 in US
Hugo Hugo is a boy's name of Germanic origin meaning "mind" or "spirit."
Boy Germanic #377 in US
Ricardo Ricardo is a boy's name meaning brave ruler, the Spanish and Portuguese form of Richard.
Boy Spanish #380 in US
Giselle Giselle means a pledge, and the pledge was a person — the Germanic gisil named a hostage given as security for a treaty.
Girl French #383 in US
Cesar Cesar is a boy's name from the Roman family name Caesar, whose own meaning the Romans could not agree on.
Boy Latin #385 in US
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.
Boy Spanish #387 in US
Kieran Kieran means little dark one, and Scotland ranks it 259th — above Ireland at 361st and the United States at 389th, which is not where an Irish saint's name would be expected to lead.
Boy Irish #389 in US
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.
Unisex French #393 in US
Jared Jared is a boy's name from Hebrew meaning descent, borne by the father of Enoch — the one man in Genesis who does not die but is taken.
Boy Hebrew #397 in US
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.
Girl Latin #399 in US
Lauren Lauren is a girl's name of Latin origin meaning "laurel," which became a women's name because a film studio invented one.
Girl English #401 in US
Kian Kian is a boy's name with two unrelated origins.
Boy Irish #401 in US
Taylor Taylor is an occupational surname meaning one who cuts cloth, now used mostly for girls at 72 percent female.
Unisex English #403 in US
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.
Boy Greek #409 in US
Rhys Rhys is a boy's name of Welsh origin meaning "ardor" or "enthusiasm," and it gave English the surname Price by way of a Welsh word for son.
Boy Welsh #410 in US
Eduardo Eduardo means wealthy guardian, and it is one of very few Old English names that spread across the Catholic world — carried by Edward the Confessor's cult rather than by English settlement.
Boy Spanish #411 in US
Laila Laila means night, and the romance built on it ran for a thousand years before Clapton — Layla and Majnun is a Persian retelling of an Arabic story, and it is the source both of the song and of the name's spread.
Girl Arabic #413 in US
Cayden Cayden charts in all seven markets and has no etymology at all — it belongs to the -aiden rhyming family invented in America in the 1990s, alongside Kaiden which is written up separately here.
Boy American #414 in US
Rylan Rylan has no documented source, and the little king gloss repeated for it is unsupported — the likeliest reading is rye land, an English place name, but even that is not established.
Unisex English #416 in US
Killian Killian is a boy's name of Irish origin meaning "little church" or "little bright-headed one," and its saint was murdered for objecting to a duke's marriage.
Boy Irish #417 in US
Jaden Jaden is a modern American name with a genuine biblical original behind it — Jadon appears once in Nehemiah, as a man who helped rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and almost nothing else is known of him.
Unisex American #421 in US
Trinity Trinity means threefold, and birth records pin its rise to The Matrix with unusual precision — the film opened on 31 March 1999, and American births went 557 in 1998, 1,571 in 1999 and 4,386 in 2000, a partial year followed by a full one.
Girl English #428 in US
London London is a girls' name in America and barely used in England — 81 percent of recorded births are female, it ranks 431st in the United States, and 3,355th in the country containing the city it names.
Unisex American #431 in US
Payton Payton means Pæga's farm, from an English place name — and it is 71 percent female on record, having crossed over from an entirely masculine surname within a generation.
Unisex English #440 in US
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.
Boy Italian #441 in US

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