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

Allyson Allyson descends from Alice by way of a French diminutive, and it is not Alice plus son — the ending is the Old French -on, the same one behind Marion, and nothing in it refers to a child.
Girl English #1,140 in US
Kasey Kasey means vigilant, and it is one of the more evenly divided names on this site — 73 percent of recorded births are female, against an Irish surname that was of course carried by both.
Unisex Irish #1,164 in US
Bria Bria is a girl's name usually explained as a short form of Brianna, though an Italian source is also proposed.
Girl Irish #1,168 in US
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 1,229th.
Girl English #1,229 in US
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.
Girl English #1,336 in US
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.
Girl Spanish #1,442 in US
Marissa Marissa is usually explained as of the sea, but that reading comes from the Latin stella maris — a title of the Virgin built on a mistranslation of Miriam that scholars abandoned centuries ago.
Girl Italian #1,674 in US
Alissa Alissa means noble, and the flower it resembles was named for rabies — alyssum joins the Greek negative to lyssa, madness, because the plant was believed to cure the bite of a mad dog.
Girl English #1,946 in US
Courtney Courtney is a name from a Norman family whose surname is usually read as short nose, though a place-name derivation competes.
Girl Norman #2,329 in US
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.
Boy Latin #2,488 in US
Caitlyn Caitlyn is the third spelling of one name on this site, alongside Caitlin and Kaitlin — all descend from Catherine by way of Old French and Irish, and all three are large enough to hold separate pages.
Girl Irish #2,504 in US
Breanna Breanna is a feminine of Brian invented in twentieth-century America, and Brian's own meaning is not settled — high or noble is the usual reading and it has never been established.
Girl American #2,542 in US
Kirsten Kirsten means a follower of the anointed one, and the anointing is literal — Christ translates the Hebrew mashiach, and both words describe someone smeared with oil at a coronation rather than a divine title.
Girl Scandinavian #2,839 in US
Jodie Jodie peaked in England, not America — 1,354 births in England and Wales in 1996 against a US high of 1,104, which makes it proportionally several times larger there than in the country usually credited with it.
Girl English #3,336 in US
Justine Justine means just or fair, from the Latin word behind justice — and it ranks 407th in France against 3,738th in the United States, which is one of the widest market splits anywhere in this group.
Girl French #3,738 in US
Kaitlin Kaitlin reached English through Irish, not from it — Catherine went into Old French as Cateline, into Irish as Caitlín, and back out again respelled.
Girl Irish #4,171 in US
Rachael Rachael respells Rachel, meaning ewe, and the animal is the point — Rachel is a shepherd in Genesis, and Jacob works fourteen years for her, which is one of the longest courtships in scripture.
Girl Hebrew #4,997 in US
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.
Girl Italian #5,122 in US
Brittney Brittney means from Brittany, and Brittany means from Britain — so the name records Britons who fled to France, making it a British name that came home by way of Normandy and a respelling.
Girl American #5,145 in US
Ashleigh Ashleigh peaked far higher in England than in America — 1,133 births in England and Wales in 1996 against a US high of 1,717, in a country with roughly a fifth of the population.
Girl English #7,116 in US
Marine Marine means of the sea, and it is a rare case of a French name that is also an ordinary English word — which is why it reads as a job title in one language and a girl's name in another.
Girl French #13,701 in US
Charline Charline means free man, and the feminine ending does not change that — the Germanic karl named a peasant freeholder, so the name descends from a word for a commoner rather than a noble.
Girl French #14,668 in US
Morgane Morgane means sea-born, and its bearer in legend is Morgan le Fay — who begins in the earliest sources as a healer who takes Arthur to Avalon, and only becomes a villain centuries later.
Girl French 76,696 births
Meagan Meagan means pearl at four removes — Welsh Megan shortens Marged, which is Margaret, which is the Greek margarites, which is probably a loan from further east than Greece.
Girl Welsh 45,226 births

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