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US baby names: the 1980s

Which baby names ruled the United States in the 1980s? In the Social Security Administration's public records, Jessica led among girls with 469,510 babies registered over the decade, and Michael came first among boys with 663,807. In all, the decade added up to 17,175,531 girl registrations and 18,458,907 boy registrations; the tables below list the 100 most common names of each sex, with the official counts.

Girls' top 100 of the 1980s

Boys' top 100 of the 1980s

The picture of the 1980s

Against the previous decade, 7 names debuted in the girls' top 20: Ashley, Tiffany, Amber, Megan, Rachel and Lauren and 1 more; on the boys' side, the 8 newcomers were Joshua, Justin, Andrew, Ryan, Brandon and Jonathan and 2 more.

Ashley made the biggest climb among girls, from rank 140 to 4; Zachary made the biggest climb among boys, from rank 141 to 43. Brittany is the most distinctive girls' name of the 1980s: it reached rank 21 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names; on the other side, Tyler is the most distinctive boys' name of the 1980s: it reached rank 48 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names.

The 10 most common girls' names covered 17.1% of all girls registered, up from 16.5% in the previous decade; for boys, the top 10 accounted for 22.2%, down from 25.5% in the previous decade.

Compare with the 1970s, when Jennifer and Michael led, and with the 1990s, which crowned Jessica and Michael. The archive with every decade shows the whole timeline at once.

Source: Social Security Administration, public data. The series comes from Social Security number applications in the United States and starts in 1880; names with fewer than 5 occurrences in a year are excluded for privacy. Snapshot of 2026-07-10.

Last updated: 2026-07-13 · Methodology and sources