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US baby names: the 1990s

If you were born in the United States in the 1990s, what name would most likely sit on your birth certificate? In the Social Security Administration's public records, Jessica led among girls with 303,136 babies registered over the decade, and Michael came first among boys with 462,466. In all, the decade added up to 18,005,347 girl registrations and 19,479,791 boy registrations; the tables below list the 100 most common names of each sex, with the official counts.

Girls' top 100 of the 1990s

Boys' top 100 of the 1990s

The picture of the 1990s

Against the previous decade, 8 names debuted in the girls' top 20: Emily, Samantha, Brittany, Taylor, Hannah and Kayla and 2 more; on the boys' side, the 3 newcomers were Jacob, Tyler and Zachary.

Taylor made the biggest climb among girls, from rank 200 to 9; Dylan made the biggest climb among boys, from rank 187 to 34. Madison is the most distinctive girls' name of the 1990s: it reached rank 29 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names; on the other side, Ethan is the most distinctive boys' name of the 1990s: it reached rank 55 without even appearing among the previous decade's 200 most common names.

The 10 most common girls' names covered 12.1% of all girls registered, down from 17.1% in the previous decade; for boys, the top 10 accounted for 16.1%, down from 22.2% in the previous decade.

Compare with the 1980s, when Jessica and Michael led, and with the 2000s, which crowned Emily and Jacob. 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