Brian — #301 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Brian

The Social Security Administration has registered 1,172,762 babies named Brian between 1909 and 2024, spanning 116 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Brian currently holds the #301 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1972, when 36,309 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Brian performed strongest in the 1970s, accumulating 322,694 births during that ten-year window. Across the 13 decades of recorded activity, Brian shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 125,801 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New York and Pennsylvania. In total, SSA state-level files list Brian in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Brian in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 1,172,762 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.