Humanverse

Baby names of 1985

Jessica and Michael topped the lists in 1985, out of 3,569,038 births recorded across 18,255 different names. That is 2.3% more than the 1984 files hold. About 3.4 million of them are alive today.

← 1984 All years 1986 →

Girls

#NameBirths
1Jessica48,345
2Ashley47,010
3Jennifer42,661
4Amanda39,055
5Sarah24,879
6Stephanie23,243
7Nicole22,966
8Heather21,151
9Elizabeth20,545
10Megan20,013
11Melissa19,963
12Christina16,600
13Rachel16,360
14Laura16,002
15Lauren15,768
16Amber15,506
17Brittany15,437
18Danielle15,417
19Kimberly14,914
20Amy14,429
21Crystal14,399
22Michelle13,973
23Tiffany13,681
24Emily13,144
25Rebecca12,705

All 200 girls’ names of 1985 (12,505 recorded)

Boys

#NameBirths
1Michael64,934
2Christopher59,609
3Matthew47,075
4Joshua42,194
5Daniel38,559
6David38,522
7James35,862
8Robert32,094
9John31,502
10Joseph30,222
11Andrew30,178
12Ryan29,905
13Brandon29,304
14Jason26,039
15Justin25,537
16William24,606
17Jonathan24,116
18Brian23,069
19Nicholas22,384
20Anthony22,104
21Eric20,844
22Adam20,165
23Kevin18,814
24Steven18,726
25Thomas17,609

All 200 boys’ names of 1985 (7,586 recorded)

Biggest climbers, girls

Names that gained the most ground on 1984:

Biggest climbers, boys

Names that gained the most ground on 1984:

First recorded in 1985, girls

Names the SSA had never published before 1985:

First recorded in 1985, boys

Names the SSA had never published before 1985:

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.