Brittany
Masculine · “the land of the Britons”
Brittany is given to girls far more often — 360,673 girls against 1,078 boys since 1880. See Brittany as a girl name
Brittany is a place before it is a name, and the place is older and stranger than the name suggests. Its coast carries the largest collection of standing stones anywhere on earth, put up by people who left no writing at all, and its sailors were working the Newfoundland banks before the men we credit with finding America had got there.
How old is the name Brittany?
Brittany first appears in US birth records in 1974 — 51 years ago. The typical Brittany alive today was born around 1989, making them about 36 years old. About 1,000 people named Brittany are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Brittany most popular?
Brittany peaked in 1989, reaching #678 nationally. See the whole 1989 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Britons cross the Channel after the fall of Rome to Brittany
The story of Brittany
At Carnac, on the southern coast, there are something over three thousand standing stones set in rows that run for four miles across the fields. They were put up over a period of centuries, beginning more than a thousand years before Stonehenge, by farming communities who left no written record of any kind, and nobody has ever established what the rows were for — processional ways, calendars, territorial markers and burial avenues have all been argued and none can be shown. The local story, told for centuries, was that they were a Roman legion turned to stone. It is at least as good an explanation as most of the archaeological ones.
Meaning
the land of the Britons
The region takes its name from the people who crossed the Channel into it in the centuries after Rome left, and the language they brought is still spoken there. As a first name it is entirely American and entirely modern: place names for girls arrived in a wave in the second half of the last century, and this one climbed from nothing to the front of the charts inside a generation, which almost no name in the record has managed.
How the name formed
- Britons cross the Channel after the fall of Rome
- the region takes their name and keeps their language
- Breton fishermen work the Newfoundland banks
- American naming turns place names into girls' names
- Brittany rises from nothing to the front of the charts
Related forms: Bretagne · Breizh · Britney · Brittani
Pronouncing Brittany
BRIT-uh-nee
Three syllables with the stress at the front and a middle vowel that almost vanishes — which is why the name has been spelled with an a, an e and an i in that slot, and why none of the spellings is wrong.
Nicknames for Brittany
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
- 1974
- Most boys named
- 1989216 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #678reached in 1989
- Change vs 2003
- +160.0%13 in 2004, from 5
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.
Brittany in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bretagne in French — same name
- Breizh in Breton — same name
- Britney in English — spelling variant
- Brittani in English — spelling variant
Brittanys among us
people named Brittany are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Brittany sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is a real place with a real history, which most modern American girls' names cannot claim.
- Britt is a ready-made short form and a full name in its own right elsewhere.
- The sound is completely familiar and needs no explanation anywhere in the English-speaking world.
- It is one of the most precisely dated names in the record and places its bearer's generation immediately.
- There are at least six spellings in circulation and she will be given all of them.
- The name belonged to an enormous cohort, so the woman carrying it will always be one of many.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Brittany
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Brittanys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Brittany are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Brittany in 2025?
- Brittany is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Brittany with classmates?
- Brittany will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More B names
The most-given names starting with B, all years combined.
Brian#339 · Benjamin#11 · Brandon#261 · Bryan#336 · Bruce#536 · Billy#1068 · Bobby#1097 · Bradley#403
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Brittany? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Brittany and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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