Buzz
While today’s hospitals are filled with babies named Olivia, Oliver, Emma, and Liam, the 1980s were dominated by names like Jessica, Joshua, Jennifer, and Christopher.
According to the Social Security Administration, Jessica was the most popular girl’s name in the 1980s, with 469,520 babies given that name. For boys, Michael led the pack with 663,844, followed by Christopher, Matthew, Joshua, and David. On the girls’ side, Jennifer, Amanda, Ashley, and Sarah trailed Jessica.
It’s important to note that the SSA treats different spellings of names as separate entries. For instance, Sarah (272,636) and Sara (104,675) would have ranked higher if combined. Other examples include Steven (25th) and Stephen (36th), Lindsey (42nd) and Lindsay (44th), and Kristen (38th) and Kristin (43rd).
In the SSA’s latest 2021 rankings, three of the top 10 baby boy names—James, William, and Benjamin—also made the top 50 in the 1980s. However, none of the top 10 girl names from 2021 overlap with the 1980s list. The trend of names ending with the letter y, like Tiffany, Brittany, and Ashley, has been replaced by names ending in a, such as Olivia, Emma, Isabella, and Mia.
How many people born in the 1980s do you know with these names?
Rank | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
1. | Michael | Jessica |
2. | Christopher | Jennifer |
3. | Matthew | Amanda |
4. | Joshua | Ashley |
5. | David | Sarah |
6. | James | Stephanie |
7. | Daniel | Melissa |
8. | Robert | Nicole |
9. | John | Elizabeth |
10. | Joseph | Heather |
11. | Jason | Tiffany |
12. | Justin | Michelle |
13. | Andrew | Amber |
14. | Ryan | Megan |
15. | William | Amy |
16. | Brian | Rachel |
17. | Brandon | Kimberly |
18. | Jonathan | Christina |
19. | Nicholas | Lauren |
20. | Anthony | Crystal |
21. | Eric | Brittany |
22. | Adam | Rebecca |
23. | Kevin | Laura |
24. | Thomas | Danielle |
25. | Steven | Emily |
26. | Timothy | Samantha |
27. | Richard | Angela |
28. | Jeremy | Erin |
29. | Jeffrey | Kelly |
30. | Kyle | Sara |
31. | Benjamin | Lisa |
32. | Aaron | Katherine |
33. | Charles | Andrea |
34. | Mark | Jamie |
35. | Jacob | Mary |
36. | Stephen | Erica |
37. | Patrick | Courtney |
38. | Scott | Kristen |
39. | Nathan | Shannon |
40. | Paul | April |
41. | Sean | Katie |
42. | Travis | Lindsey |
43. | Zachary | Kristin |
44. | Dustin | Lindsay |
45. | Gregory | Christine |
46. | Kenneth | Alicia |
47. | Jose | Maria |
48. | Tyler | Vanessa |
49. | Jesse | Kathryn |
50. | Alexander | Allison |
