Baby names of 1991

Ashley and Michael topped the lists in 1991, out of 3,895,335 births recorded across 23,084 different names. That is 1.4% fewer than the 1990 files hold. About 3.8 million of them are alive today.

← 1990 All years 1992 →

Girls

#	Name	Births
1	Ashley	43,477
2	Jessica	43,398
3	Brittany	29,093
4	Amanda	28,896
5	Samantha	25,651
6	Sarah	25,233
7	Stephanie	22,775
8	Jennifer	20,673
9	Elizabeth	20,395
10	Emily	20,311
11	Megan	19,278
12	Kayla	18,545
13	Lauren	18,412
14	Rachel	16,344
15	Nicole	16,046
16	Amber	14,992
17	Danielle	13,619
18	Chelsea	13,509
19	Courtney	13,441
20	Melissa	13,348
21	Rebecca	13,298
22	Michelle	12,213
23	Heather	11,703
24	Jasmine	11,524
25	Katherine	11,495

All 200 girls’ names of 1991 (15,466 recorded)

Boys

#	Name	Births
1	Michael	60,810
2	Christopher	47,111
3	Matthew	41,647
4	Joshua	41,226
5	Andrew	31,539
6	Daniel	30,935
7	James	30,514
8	David	30,416
9	Joseph	29,840
10	John	27,809
11	Ryan	27,536
12	Nicholas	27,357
13	Robert	26,839
14	Justin	26,797
15	Brandon	26,021
16	Tyler	25,209
17	Jacob	25,200
18	Anthony	24,447
19	William	23,860
20	Jonathan	22,975
21	Kyle	21,610
22	Zachary	21,387
23	Kevin	20,262
24	Cody	18,980
25	Eric	18,051

All 200 boys’ names of 1991 (9,648 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1990:

Rebeccah #2,600 → #1,000 +1,600
Ieshia #1,938 → #717 +1,221
Miriah #2,081 → #946 +1,135
Alexus #1,813 → #952 +861
Chynna #1,512 → #836 +676
Shelbie #1,154 → #576 +578
Iesha #731 → #157 +574
Estefania #1,292 → #789 +503

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1990:

Devante #5,382 → #920 +4,462
Jaleel #2,373 → #877 +1,496
Gunnar #1,516 → #705 +811
Dijon #1,587 → #915 +672
Dylon #1,409 → #792 +617
Cheyenne #1,564 → #972 +592
Dillan #1,226 → #681 +545
Keifer #1,435 → #920 +515

Cheyenne 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 1991, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1991:

Emilce 30
Symba 30
Liridona 29
Trane 24
Ariah 21
Alaetra 17
Emilse 17
Maleny 16
Beija 15
Shelbylynn 15

First recorded in 1991, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1991:

Quayshaun 93
Quayshawn 45
Diamante 30
Dillen 22
Irbin 17
Quashaun 17
Diamonte 16
Novian 15
Demontez 15
Tevyn 14

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.