Millennial Names

Names that crested around the turn of the century. Still falling in the records, and the group most likely to be described as timeless by people who were at school with four of them.

Rankings for

76 names, most popular first in the United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

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.
Boy Irish #621 in US
Destiny Destiny is a word name meaning a fixed future, and its root is a verb about standing firm — the Latin destinare means to make fast or fix in place, so the idea is settled rather than foreseen.
Girl English #635 in US
Alondra Alondra means lark, and a Roman legion was named for the bird — Caesar raised the Legio V Alaudae in Gaul and it took the lark's name, probably from crested plumes on the helmets.
Girl Spanish #681 in US
Makenzie Makenzie means son of the handsome one, which is an odd fit for a name that is 99 percent female on record — the Gaelic Mac is a patronymic, and it has not been reinterpreted.
Girl Scottish #700 in US
Jazmin Jazmin respells a Persian word that traveled the length of Eurasia — yasmin passed through Arabic into Europe with the plant itself, which is why the word is near-identical in a dozen unrelated languages.
Girl American #710 in US
Abby Abby means my father is joy, and France ranks it 322nd — ahead of Scotland at 359th, Ireland at 453rd and the United States at 731st, which is not where an English diminutive of a Hebrew name should lead.
Girl English #731 in US
Ty Ty has no source of its own — it shortens Tyler, Tyrone and Tyson, three names with nothing in common, so which one a given Ty belongs to cannot be read off the name.
Boy English #811 in US
Brock Brock means badger, and it is one of the oldest animal words in English — a Celtic borrowing that entered Old English before the Norman Conquest and survives in dialect to this day.
Boy English #813 in US
Kyra Kyra means lady, and the Greek behind it is the feminine of the word Christians use for the Lord — kyrios, as in kyrie eleison, which is the oldest Greek surviving in the Latin mass.
Girl Greek #828 in US
Haley Haley means hay meadow, from an English place name.
Girl English #861 in US
Conner Conner means desiring hounds rather than loving them — the Irish joins a word for a hound or wolf to one meaning desire, and the softer lover of hounds gloss smooths over what was a warrior's name.
Boy Irish #864 in US
Adrianna Adrianna means from Hadria, and the sea took its name from the town rather than the other way round — the Adriatic is called after a small Italian settlement that is now several miles inland.
Girl Latin #873 in US
Kylee Kylee has no agreed source, and it is not a feminine of Kyle — the -lee ending was attached to a Ky- opening in twentieth-century America, and any Gaelic meaning offered for it arrived afterward.
Girl American #875 in US
Trey Trey means three, and it is a card and dice word — the trey is the three-spot, which is why the name attached itself to sons who were the third to carry a family name.
Boy English #889 in US
Ashlyn Ashlyn has two possible sources and they disagree completely — the Irish aisling means a dream or vision, while the English reading is simply an ash-tree clearing.
Girl American #972 in US
Gage Gage means a pledge, and it names the object rather than the person — the thing handed over as security.
Boy French #975 in US
Jazmine Jazmine is the fourth spelling of one Persian word on this site, alongside Jasmine, Jasmin and Jazmin — yasmin traveled with the plant itself, which is why it is near-identical across a dozen languages.
Girl American #994 in US
Alexa Alexa did not simply collapse when Amazon launched the Echo — it rose first.
Girl Greek #1,030 in US
Alexia Alexia means defender, and it is also a clinical term — alexia is the medical name for acquired inability to read, from the same Greek root by a completely separate route.
Girl Greek #1,040 in US
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.
Boy American #1,040 in US
Braden Braden means descendant of the salmon, and the fish is not decorative — the Salmon of Knowledge is the center of one of the best-known Irish stories, in which Fionn gains all wisdom by burning his thumb on it.
Boy Irish #1,152 in US
Jada Jada appears once in the Hebrew Bible as a man's name, in a genealogy in Chronicles — the modern American name is effectively a separate creation that happens to match it.
Girl American #1,201 in US
Trent Trent means the trespasser, and it is a warning rather than a description — the English river was named for its habit of flooding across its banks and cutting new channels.
Boy English #1,341 in US
Tia Tia peaked far higher in England than its population would predict — 1,050 births in England and Wales in 2004 against an American peak of 1,189, in a country with roughly a fifth of the people.
Girl Spanish #1,977 in US
Lilou Lilou is a French invention of the 1990s, and its rise is one of the sharpest on record for France — from almost nothing to 3,850 births at its 2009 peak, then down to 260 today.
Girl French #7,461 in US
Océane Océane means of the ocean, and it is almost entirely French — 283rd there against 2,998th in England and Wales and 10,001st in the United States.
Girl French #10,001 in US
Antonin Antonin descends from a Roman family name nobody can translate — Antonius is probably Etruscan, and the praiseworthy and flower readings were both attached by Renaissance humanists.
Boy French 43,090 births
Kirsty Kirsty is a Scottish girl's name meaning "follower of Christ."
Girl Scottish, Latin 21,595 births

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