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Boys' name · 396,301 recorded births

Bryan

#336 in the US in 2025

Where Bryan stands

United States register · 1880–2025

#336boys’ names · US 2025

Bryan was the 336th most registered boys' name in the United States in 2025, on 1,005 births.

peak 1985 · 8,717188019532025

Its moment was 1985, when 8,717 babies were given it. In 6 of the years between, the name fell under the 5-birth floor and the registrar published nothing — those years are the marks along the base of the chart, not gaps in the name's use.

SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

#336US rank, 2025 (boys)
1,005US births in 2025
#42its best US rank, in 1977
1985peak year — 8,717 births
389,589US births since 1883
4,473NZ births since 1913
522E&W births, 2019–2025
Saved in this browser only — no account, nothing sent anywhere.

How Bryan's figures are worked out

  1. Counts come straight from the registrars: the US Social Security Administration (1880–2025) and the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (1900–2025). Nothing is scraped from another names site. The SSA files are the agency's own, retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified.
  2. Ranks are computed against every name in that year's file, not just the ones this site publishes pages for — otherwise a rank would flatter every name we happen to list.
  3. The curve is drawn on births per 100,000 of that sex, not raw counts. Raw counts across eras are misleading: far more births were registered in 1957 than in 1890, so a flat count is a falling share.
  4. The reporting floor. Each registrar publishes a name only once it clears a threshold — 5 births of that sex in the US, 10 in New Zealand. Expressed as a share that threshold is itself a curve, and it is drawn on every chart here as the shaded band along the base.
  5. A missing year is a suppressed value, never a zero. Where the registrar published nothing, this site prints “below floor” or “<5”, the curve is broken rather than drawn across the gap, and the missing years are marked on the floor line. Bryan was under the floor in 6 years of its US record.
share per 100,000 = births ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000
reporting floor (share) = 5 ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000

Full methodology →

Bryan in the United States

188019001920194019601980200020200.0240480
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 5-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Bryan in the United States, 1880–2025
boysgirls

Between 2016 and 2025 the name has been falling — down 48% as a share of boys' births.

SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Bryan in New Zealand

In New Zealand, Bryan has been registered 4,473 times since 1913, peaking in 1948 with 117 births. It did not clear the DIA's 10-birth reporting floor in 2025.

1900192019401960198020002020NOT PUBLISHED — BELOW THE 10-BIRTH FLOOR0.0306611
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 10-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Bryan in New Zealand, 1900–2025

SOURCE·NZ Department of Internal Affairs, births by first name·CC BY 4.0. DIA lists a name only if it was given to at least 10 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Bryan in England & Wales

In England and Wales, Bryan was registered 522 times between 2019 and 2025, peaking in 2022 with 86 births. It ranked #497 for boys in 2025 on 77 births.

20200.01530
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 3-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Bryan in England and Wales, 2019–2025

Seven years is a window, not a history. Unlike the American and New Zealand series this one cannot show you a name's arrival or its long decline — ONS publishes the full list only from 2019. England and Wales only: Scotland and Northern Ireland publish separately and are not counted here.

SOURCE·Office for National Statistics, baby names in England and Wales·Open Government Licence v3.0. ONS redacts any name given to 2 or fewer babies of that sex that year, under s40 of the Freedom of Information Act.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Decade by decade in the US

US rank and births at each decade markSSA · JUL 2026
YearRankBirths
1890#8147
1900#27755
1910#92812
1920#71383
1930#540122
1940#406200
1950#247737
1960#884,780
1970#536,452
1980#497,513
1990#577,439
2000#706,143
2010#973,938
2020#2591,359

<5 = the SSA published no figure for that year. It is a suppressed value, not a zero.

Where in the United States

The states that registered Bryan most often since 1883. These are lifetime totals, so they track state population as much as local taste — a name common in Wyoming will never out-count California.

StateBirths
California58,628
Texas37,090
New York23,797
Florida18,701
Ohio17,702
Illinois16,578
Pennsylvania15,331
Michigan12,973
New Jersey11,015
North Carolina10,538

Questions about Bryan

How popular is the name Bryan?

Bryan ranked #336 for boys in the United States in 2025, on 1,005 births registered with the Social Security Administration.

When was Bryan most popular?

Bryan peaked in 1985, when 8,717 babies in the United States were given the name.

Is Bryan rising or falling?

Measured as a share of all boys' births, Bryan has been falling between 2016 and 2025 (-48%).

Same sex, peaking within a few years of 1985, at a comparable scale. Not a taste engine — this is arithmetic on peak years, which is why it will occasionally hand you something unfashionable that is nonetheless exactly of the period.

SOURCE·US SSA (1880–2025) + NZ DIA (1900–2025) birth registrations·ranks and shares computed from the source files, see method·REVIEWED JUL 2026

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Amit Sharma

Auckland real-estate agent and marketer. Builds free, sourced data tools.