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

15 names, most popular first in Northern Ireland

Very Rare Rare Uncommon

Girls Boys Unisex

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.
English #305
Brandon Brandon is a boy's name from an English place name meaning broom-covered hill, often confused with the Irish Brendan.
English #313
Tristan Tristan does not mean sad.
Celtic #377
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.
Welsh #450
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.
Hebrew 218,211 births
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.
English 186,057 births
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.
Irish 181,218 births
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.
Welsh 173,150 births
Florian Florian means flowering, from the Latin word for a flower, and England and Wales ranks it 875th — within six places of France at 869th, which is the closest cross-market pairing anywhere in this group.
Latin 132,363 births
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.
English 108,159 births
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.
English 103,661 births
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.
English 88,318 births
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.
American 83,907 births
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.
Irish 75,751 births
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.
Irish 72,243 births

Or Browse by Decade

A style is our reading of a name. A decade is the register — the names children were actually given, in order, with the counts.

Search Names

Nineties Names

Or Browse by Decade

Related Styles