Brandin
Masculine
Brandin is given to both — 2,752 boys and 137 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
An Irish monk's voyage narrative describes landing on an island that turns out to be a whale, sailing past a pillar of crystal, and reaching a country in the far west. In 1976 a man built a leather boat to the specification in the text and sailed it from Ireland to Newfoundland to show it could be done.
How old is the name Brandin?
Brandin first appears in US birth records in 1972 — 53 years ago. The typical Brandin alive today was born around 1993, making them about 32 years old. About 2,700 people named Brandin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Brandin most popular?
Brandin peaked in 1988, reaching #850 nationally. Today it ranks #12008, 11,158 places below that high. See the whole 1988 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Brendan to Brandin
The story of Brandin
The Navigatio Sancti Brendani was written in the ninth or tenth century and was one of the most copied texts in medieval Europe. It describes a seven-year voyage west with a crew of monks, and its details — an island of birds, a floating pillar of ice, a region of fire and slag, an island that submerges when they light a fire on its back — have been read for centuries as garbled reports of icebergs, volcanic Iceland and whales. Tim Severin built a boat of ox hides on an ash frame in 1976 and reached Newfoundland the following summer. That does not prove the voyage happened; it proves the boat could have made it, which is a different and still remarkable claim.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Brandon is either an English place name — Old English brom, broom, or brant, steep, with dun, a hill — or a form of the Irish Brendan, from a Welsh or Irish word of uncertain meaning. Both are documented and the American given name draws on both.
How the name formed
- Brendan
- Brandon
- Brandin
Related forms: Breandan
Pronouncing Brandin
BRAN-din
Two syllables, stress on the first. Brandon, Branden and Brandin are said identically; the second vowel reduces to nothing in all of them.
Nicknames for Brandin
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1972
- Most boys named
- 1988125 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #850reached in 1988
- Change vs 2023
- −16.7%5 in 2025, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Brandin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Breandan in Irish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Brandins among us
people named Brandin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 341,615 born in 2025 was named Brandin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Brandin
- #12008
- Brandin on the 2025 chart
- #912
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Brandin went to 5 boys in 2025, but Brandyn is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 16, which makes it the 912th most-given boys’ name of the year — 11,096 places above the chart.
- Brandyn11
- Brandin5
About 1 boy in 106,755 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 341,615 for Brandin itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Vernell test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Brandin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Vernell climbed just as high around 1949, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Vernell's path sketches the road Brandin is walking now.
Brandin sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Brandin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Brandin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A documented sixth-century figure with a text and a modern experiment attached.
- Two syllables that everyone reads correctly on sight.
- Bran works as a short form and has a mythology of its own.
- Brandon is far commoner and this spelling will be corrected toward it.
- It was one of the most given names of the 1980s and 1990s, which places the bearer in time.
- The very few girls given this spelling will be read as boys on every form.
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What they receive
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Brandin
Masculine · #12008 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Brandins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,700 people named Brandin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Brandin?
- Brandin is one of 2 recorded spellings. Brandyn is the more common one — 11 births in 2025 against 5 for Brandin.
- How popular is the name Brandin in 2025?
- Brandin ranks #12008 among US boy names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Brandin?
- About 1 in every 341,615 US boys born in 2025 was named Brandin — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Brandin with classmates?
- Brandin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Brandin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Garfield#12008 · Chas#12008 · Lew#12008 · Barney#12008 · Dewitt#12008 · Granville#12008 · Cicero#12008 · Willam#12008
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Brandin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Brandin and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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