Nineties Names

The 1990s peak group. Many are the parents' names now rather than the grandparents', which puts them at the bottom of their curve — the least fashionable a name gets before it starts climbing again.

Rankings for

72 names, most popular first in the United States

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

Brianna Brianna is a girl's name, the feminine of Brian, whose Irish meaning has never been securely established.
Girl Irish #222 in US
Brandon Brandon is a boy's name from an English place name meaning broom-covered hill, often confused with the Irish Brendan.
Boy English #261 in US
Dakota Dakota means friend or ally in the Dakota language, and it is one of very few widely used names taken from an Indigenous North American language.
Unisex Native American #295 in US
Tristan Tristan does not mean sad.
Boy Celtic #309 in US
Morgan Morgan is a Welsh name meaning sea-born, and it charts in all seven markets within a range of just over three hundred places — one of the most evenly distributed names on this site.
Unisex Welsh #312 in US
Brooke Brooke is a girl's name from the English word for a small stream.
Girl English #313 in US
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
Ariel Ariel means lion of God, and The Little Mermaid moved it hard and briefly.
Unisex Hebrew #358 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
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
Mariah Mariah shows the sharpest single-artist effect on record.
Girl English #448 in US
Dalton Dalton means the settlement in the valley, and Northern Ireland ranks it 305th — above the United States at 448th, which is unexpected for a name whose modern use is almost entirely American.
Boy English #448 in US
Alyssa Alyssa is a girl's name from the flower alyssum, whose Greek name means without madness — the plant was believed to cure rabies.
Girl Greek #453 in US
Reece Reece means ardor, and its England and Wales peak of 1,828 in 1996 is far larger than anything the United States has recorded — a Welsh name that reached America late and never matched its home scale.
Boy Welsh #460 in US
Alexandria Alexandria is the city before it is the name — Alexander founded it in 331 BC, and the feminine given name was formed from the place rather than directly from Alexandra, which took a different route.
Girl Greek #474 in US
Tanner Tanner names one of the most unpleasant medieval trades — tanneries used urine and dog feces to cure hides, and were forced to the downwind edge of every town by law as well as by smell.
Boy English #475 in US
Collin Collin doubles the L of Colin, and the name underneath has two unrelated sources — a French pet form of Nicolas, and the Scottish Gaelic Cailean, which share nothing but a spelling.
Boy American #493 in US
Johnathan Johnathan is a misspelling that became a name — it inserts an h into Jonathan by confusion with John, and the two are different Hebrew names that only look related.
Boy English #509 in US
Alexis Alexis is a Greek name meaning helper or defender, and it is split by country: a boys' name in France, where it ranks 256th, and majority female in the United States.
Unisex Greek #513 in US
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.
Girl Irish #541 in US
Devin Devin is a name from an Irish surname, and its meanings are contested — poet, and a word for a stag, are both proposed from different Irish originals.
Boy Irish #548 in US
Sierra Sierra means a mountain range, and the Spanish word is literally a saw — ranges were named for the jagged sawtooth profile they cut against the sky.
Girl Spanish #614 in US
Cassandra Cassandra is a girl's name from Greek myth, borne by a prophet cursed to see the future and never be believed.
Girl Greek #630 in US
Shelby Shelby is a girl's name from an English place name of Norse formation meaning a willow farm.
Girl English #649 in US
Miranda Miranda was coined by Shakespeare for The Tempest around 1611, from the Latin for to be wondered at.
Girl Latin #655 in US
Briana Briana is a feminine of Brian, and it first appears in Spenser's Faerie Queene in 1590 — which makes it one of very few names whose earliest recorded use is a specific poem.
Girl Irish #661 in US
Trevor Trevor is a Welsh place name meaning big settlement, and the first element is the tre that begins a great many Cornish and Welsh place names — Tregaron, Trelawney, Treharris and several hundred others besides.
Boy Welsh #679 in US
Mikayla Mikayla respells Michaela, and the Hebrew behind both is a question — who is like God — whose expected answer is nobody.
Girl American #746 in US
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.
Girl Scandinavian #749 in US
Chandler Chandler means a candle maker, and the trade left a grander word behind — the same French root gives chandelier, so the humblest medieval occupation names the most ornate fitting in the house.
Unisex English #753 in US
Kaitlyn Kaitlyn is a girl's name that respells the Irish Caitlín — which came into Irish from French, and into French from Greek.
Girl Irish #801 in US
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.
Girl English #802 in US
Kelsey Kelsey is a girl's name from an English place name, and its two proposed meanings — ship's victory and Cenel's island — have nothing in common.
Girl English #815 in US
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.
Girl Hebrew #841 in US
Chelsea Chelsea is a girl's name from a London district whose name means chalk landing place — a wharf where chalk was unloaded from boats on the Thames.
Girl English #852 in US
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.
Girl Hebrew #885 in US
Megan Megan is a girl's name, the Welsh pet form of Margaret, from a Greek word for pearl that reached Europe from Persian.
Girl Welsh #888 in US
Anaïs Anaïs has no settled origin — Occitan, a form of Anne, and a Greek borrowing are all proposed.
Girl French #892 in US
Cheyenne Cheyenne is not the Cheyenne people's own name for themselves — it is a Sioux word meaning red speakers, applied from outside.
Girl Native American #921 in US
Brittany Brittany is a girl's name taken from the French region, which is named for British settlers who crossed the Channel in late antiquity.
Girl English #928 in US
Dillon Dillon has two unrelated sources that English cannot separate — an Irish surname of uncertain meaning and the Welsh Dylan, a sea god from the Mabinogi.
Boy Irish #930 in US
Mitchell Mitchell is a boy's name from a medieval English form of Michael, meaning who is like God — though a second and quite separate source exists from an old word simply meaning big.
Boy English #952 in US
Mathew Mathew drops a t from Matthew, and the doubled t was never in the Hebrew — it entered through the Greek and Latin spellings, so the shorter form is arguably closer to the original.
Boy English #974 in US
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.
Girl English #1,011 in US
Kara Kara means beloved, from the Italian and Latin for dear — and a separate Norse Kara exists as the name of a valkyrie, so the same spelling covers two entirely unrelated names.
Girl Italian #1,075 in US
Katelyn Katelyn is one of five respellings that divided the same sound in the 1990s, and Ireland ranks it 292nd — far above the United States at 1,078th, the reverse of how its sister spelling Kaitlyn behaves.
Girl Irish #1,078 in US
Erika Erika means ever-ruler, the feminine of Erik — and it is also the botanical name for heather, which is a separate Greek word that happens to match.
Girl Scandinavian #1,111 in US
Clarissa Clarissa means bright, and it names one of the longest novels in English — Richardson's Clarissa runs to about a million words, which makes it longer than the whole of Proust in most editions.
Girl Latin #1,116 in US

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