Humanverse

Baby names of 1987

Jessica and Michael topped the lists in 1987, out of 3,605,616 births recorded across 19,485 different names. That is 1.4% more than the 1986 files hold. About 3.5 million of them are alive today.

← 1986 All years 1988 →

Girls

#NameBirths
1Jessica55,992
2Ashley54,856
3Amanda41,786
4Jennifer32,710
5Sarah27,894
6Stephanie22,402
7Brittany22,231
8Nicole20,286
9Heather18,982
10Elizabeth18,608
11Samantha17,944
12Megan17,823
13Melissa17,674
14Danielle17,010
15Amber16,749
16Lauren16,710
17Rachel15,646
18Tiffany14,742
19Emily14,710
20Christina13,816
21Michelle13,034
22Laura13,033
23Kimberly13,031
24Amy11,786
25Rebecca11,627

All 200 girls’ names of 1987 (13,263 recorded)

Boys

#NameBirths
1Michael63,664
2Christopher54,493
3Matthew46,511
4Joshua40,002
5David36,795
6Andrew36,206
7Daniel35,876
8James32,659
9Justin31,491
10Robert30,237
11John29,555
12Joseph28,516
13Ryan28,490
14Brandon24,823
15William24,202
16Nicholas23,247
17Anthony23,127
18Jonathan23,119
19Kevin20,421
20Brian20,362
21Eric20,203
22Kyle19,862
23Jason19,350
24Thomas18,139
25Steven17,768

All 200 boys’ names of 1987 (8,152 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1986:

Channing and Gabriel are here because the girls’ file records them: 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 1986:

Shay is here because the boys’ 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.

First recorded in 1987, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1987:

Sagan 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.

First recorded in 1987, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1987:

Karrington is here because the boys’ 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.

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.