Baby names of 1989

Jessica and Michael topped the lists in 1989, out of 3,844,480 births recorded across 21,629 different names. That is 4.0% more than the 1988 files hold. About 3.7 million of them are alive today.

← 1988 All years 1990 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Jessica	47,887
2	Ashley	47,588
3	Brittany	37,792
4	Amanda	36,834
5	Sarah	27,797
6	Samantha	24,792
7	Jennifer	24,006
8	Stephanie	22,766
9	Lauren	21,065
10	Elizabeth	20,298
11	Megan	19,780
12	Nicole	19,032
13	Emily	17,323
14	Amber	16,760
15	Heather	16,248
16	Tiffany	15,716
17	Danielle	15,366
18	Rachel	15,357
19	Melissa	15,203
20	Kayla	14,903
21	Courtney	13,452
22	Michelle	13,376
23	Christina	13,141
24	Rebecca	12,436
25	Laura	11,740

All 200 girls’ names of 1989 (14,550 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Michael	65,415
2	Christopher	53,186
3	Matthew	45,375
4	Joshua	44,100
5	David	35,225
6	Daniel	35,007
7	Andrew	34,817
8	Justin	32,852
9	James	32,720
10	Robert	30,072
11	Joseph	29,884
12	John	29,853
13	Ryan	28,408
14	Nicholas	28,230
15	William	24,673
16	Anthony	24,423
17	Jonathan	23,608
18	Brandon	23,310
19	Kevin	21,209
20	Kyle	20,882
21	Eric	18,977
22	Steven	18,929
23	Thomas	18,439
24	Brian	18,106
25	Zachary	18,077

All 200 boys’ names of 1989 (9,232 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1988:

Audriana #10,386 → #863 +9,523
Martika #8,391 → #887 +7,504
Audrianna #7,691 → #759 +6,932
Elizabet #4,496 → #524 +3,972
Katherin #2,489 → #717 +1,772
Ashanti #1,822 → #893 +929
Kiara #819 → #114 +705
Stephani #1,053 → #390 +663

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1988:

Kiara #7,270 → #956 +6,314
Alexande #6,426 → #556 +5,870
Kwame #1,768 → #657 +1,111
Kadeem #1,467 → #701 +766
Hakeem #1,270 → #586 +684
Gage #1,373 → #755 +618
Axel #1,525 → #951 +574
Rakeem #1,404 → #902 +502

Kiara 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 1989, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1989:

Cree 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 1989, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1989:

Christop 1,082
Khiry 159
Tajh 65
Kristoph 44
Savion 39
Tahj 37
Quamaine 35
Kwamane 31
Kwamaine 29
Rumeal 25

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.