Brendan
Masculine · “prince”
Brendan is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 91,816 boys against 325 girls since 1880.
Brendan belonged first to an Irish abbot of the sixth century, Brendan of Clonfert, whose sea voyage became one of medieval Europe's most copied stories — the Latin Navigatio Sancti Brendani, retold from Ireland to Italy. The name traveled with the tale, picking up local forms along the way, and came back into wide English-language use through Irish families. Two syllables, stress on the first, and it lands the same way in almost every mouth.
How old is the name Brendan?
Brendan first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Brendan alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 87,500 people named Brendan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Brendan most popular?
Brendan peaked in 1999, reaching #96 nationally. Today it ranks #1097, 1,001 places below that high. See the whole 1999 chart.
Brendan appears on these lists:
- Beloved classics quietly disappearing
- Irish names beyond St. Patrick's Day
- Names that belong entirely to the 1990s
- all guides
Works in Irish families too:
Where it comes from
From breenhin (Old Welsh, 'prince') to Brendan
The story of Brendan
The name is Irish, but its root is Brythonic — a word for a prince that crossed into Old Irish as Bréanainn. It was carried by Brendan of Clonfert, the sixth-century abbot remembered as the Navigator, and his legend did the rest: the Navigatio Sancti Brendani, an account of a long Atlantic voyage among islands and marvels, circulated in Latin across medieval Europe and was translated again and again. That is how Spanish got Brandán and Italian Brandano. In English the Latinized Brendan stuck, and Irish emigration brought it to America, where it has been on record for more than a century.
Meaning
prince, king
The chain runs from an Old Welsh word for a prince or ruler into Old Irish as Bréanainn, then into Latin as Brendanus, which is where the modern English spelling comes from.
How the name formed
- breenhinOld Welsh, 'prince'
- Bréanainn
- Brendanus
- Brendan
Related forms: Breandán · Bréanainn · Brendanus · Brandán · Brandano · Brendan
Pronouncing Brendan
BREN-dun
Stress on the first syllable. The Irish form Breandán is usually said bren-DAWN, with the weight at the end.
Nicknames for Brendan
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
- 1912
- Most boys named
- 20003,657 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #96reached in 1999
- Change vs 2023
- −25.6%195 in 2025, from 262
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.
Brendan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Breandán in Irish — same name
- Bréanainn in Old Irish — related form
- Brendanus in Latin — same name
- Brandán in Spanish — related form
- Brandano in Italian — related form
- Brendan in French — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: New York, California, Texas.
Brendans among us
people named Brendan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 8,759 born in 2025 was named Brendan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Mack test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Brendan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Mack climbed just as high around 1900, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Mack's path sketches the road Brendan is walking now.
Brendan is coming down from a big peak (#96 in 1999). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Brendan is headed
Brendan is easing off slowly — about 22% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Brendan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Brendan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Documented in continuous use since the early medieval period, with a named sixth-century bearer and a legend that spread across several languages.
- Two syllables, first-syllable stress, no silent letters — readable on sight by most English speakers.
- Has settled equivalents in Irish, Latin, Spanish and Italian, so it travels without becoming unrecognizable.
- Familiar to adults across the country without being crowded in the classroom now — well known, not everywhere.
- It sits very close to Brandon, and to the variants Brendon, Brenden and Brandan. Expect a lifetime of light corrections, spoken and spelled, and pick your spelling knowing the others exist.
- The great majority of Brendans in the US are grown adults rather than children, so the name currently reads as a man's name more than a boy's. That fades quickly once there is a Brendan in the room.
- The Irish association is strong and specific. Some families love that; if yours has no connection to it, the name still works, but people will often assume one.
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What they receive
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Brendan
Masculine · #1097 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Brendans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 87,500 people named Brendan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Brendan in 2025?
- Brendan ranks #1097 among US boy names in 2025, with 195 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Brendan?
- About 1 in every 8,759 US boys born in 2025 was named Brendan — 195 in all.
- Will my child share the name Brendan with classmates?
- Brendan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Brendan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dayton#1097 · Bobby#1097 · Dimitri#1097 · Mael#1097 · Kit#1097 · Turner#1097 · Rami#1097 · Marlon#1097
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Brendan? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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