Baby names of 1980

Jennifer and Michael topped the lists in 1980, out of 3,444,258 births recorded across 17,727 different names. That is 3.5% more than the 1979 files hold. About 3.2 million of them are alive today.

← 1979 All years 1981 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Jennifer	58,374
2	Amanda	35,811
3	Jessica	33,924
4	Melissa	31,629
5	Sarah	25,757
6	Heather	19,973
7	Nicole	19,917
8	Amy	19,833
9	Elizabeth	19,529
10	Michelle	19,119
11	Kimberly	18,497
12	Angela	17,969
13	Stephanie	17,841
14	Tiffany	16,228
15	Christina	16,141
16	Lisa	15,664
17	Rebecca	15,281
18	Crystal	14,253
19	Kelly	13,710
20	Erin	13,428
21	Laura	12,916
22	Amber	12,553
23	Rachel	11,618
24	Jamie	11,529
25	Mary	11,474

All 200 girls’ names of 1980 (12,161 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Michael	68,683
2	Christopher	49,079
3	Jason	48,164
4	David	41,891
5	James	39,312
6	Matthew	37,834
7	Joshua	36,052
8	John	35,274
9	Robert	34,266
10	Joseph	30,185
11	Daniel	29,888
12	Brian	28,715
13	Justin	26,763
14	William	25,639
15	Ryan	24,795
16	Eric	22,611
17	Nicholas	21,018
18	Jeremy	19,892
19	Andrew	19,730
20	Timothy	19,146
21	Jonathan	18,986
22	Adam	18,868
23	Kevin	17,972
24	Anthony	17,604
25	Thomas	17,564

All 200 boys’ names of 1980 (7,293 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1979:

Renada #2,218 → #708 +1,510
Tai #2,112 → #939 +1,173
Anya #1,592 → #556 +1,036
Chimere #1,503 → #902 +601
Brynn #1,442 → #925 +517
Blair #1,394 → #893 +501
Missy #1,349 → #875 +474
Anabel #1,394 → #921 +473

Tai is here because the girls’ file records it: the SSA publishes every name given to five or more babies of one sex, and a rank is a position within that list. It is not a claim about whose name it is.

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1979:

Gideon #1,370 → #989 +381
Bo #864 → #568 +296
Anson #1,137 → #867 +270
Dustan #1,255 → #989 +266
Dusty #614 → #359 +255
Cristian #1,100 → #850 +250
Jessy #1,193 → #945 +248
Yoel #1,023 → #777 +246

First recorded in 1980, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1980:

Nykeba 26
Ilea 24
Semiko 23
Brittanya 19
Yer 17
Cielita 17
Nyah 17
Britanya 16
Renoda 15
Sumeka 14

First recorded in 1980, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1980:

Tou 33
Marchello 24
Kao 23
Teng 15
Kimario 13
Jordache 12
Danh 12
Almanzo 12
Bassel 11
Devonte 10

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration national baby-name files. Names given to fewer than five babies in a year are not published, so the totals here run below the true number of births. How far below is not the same in every year: the files hold 201,484 births for 1880 and 3,315,343 for 2025, so a change from one year to the next in the early decades is partly a change in what the record covers.