Brooklyn
Feminine · “From the New York borough”
Brooklyn is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 125,197 girls against 1,858 boys since 1880. See Brooklyn as a boy name
Brooklyn began as Breukelen, a village in the Dutch province of Utrecht, carried across the Atlantic by settlers who planted the name on the far side of the East River in 1646. Four centuries later it says itself: two clean syllables, the second one the same -lyn that ends Evelyn and Madelyn. Few names manage to be both a real place on the map and a name a child answers to.
How old is the name Brooklyn?
Brooklyn first appears in US birth records in 1972 — 53 years ago. The typical Brooklyn alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 124,000 people named Brooklyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Brooklyn most popular?
Brooklyn peaked in 2011, reaching #21 nationally. Today it ranks #118, 97 places below that high. See the whole 2011 chart.
Where it comes from
From Breukelen to Brooklyn
The story of Brooklyn
Breukelen is an old village in the Netherlands, on the river Vecht in the province of Utrecht, recorded in medieval Dutch documents long before anyone crossed an ocean. In 1646 settlers of New Netherland chartered a town of Breuckelen on Long Island, and English tongues wore the spelling down to Brooklyn. The borough grew into one of the most written-about places in America, and its bridge, opened in 1883, made the word familiar far beyond New York. Only in the last stretch of the twentieth century did American parents begin using it for daughters, helped along by the -lyn ending it shares with a long line of established girls' names.
Meaningscholars disagree
From the New York borough, named for the Dutch village Breukelen — most often read as 'marshland' or 'broken land'
The Dutch place name is usually traced to 'broek', meaning marsh or wetland, joined to an element for a watercourse — roughly 'marsh stream'. A competing reading takes it as 'broken land', ground broken for cultivation. Both are serious; neither has won. What is not in doubt is the route: Dutch village to Dutch colonial settlement to American given name.
Cultural footprint
Brooklyn Decker (b. 1987) — Sports Illustrated model turned actress
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Breukelen
- Breuckelen
- Brooklyn
Related forms: Breukelen
Pronouncing Brooklyn
BROOK-lin
Stress on the first syllable, with the 'oo' of 'book' rather than 'boot'. The spelling gives the sound away, so it travels well in English-speaking countries.
Nicknames for Brooklyn
High
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 girls named
- 20117,178 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #21reached in 2011
- Change vs 2024
- −8.0%2,300 in 2025, from 2,500
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.
Brooklyn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Breukelen in Dutch — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Brooklyns among us
people named Brooklyn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 699 born in 2025 was named Brooklyn
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Brooklyn
- #118
- Brooklyn on the 2025 chart
- #100
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Brooklyn went to 2,300 girls in 2025, but Brooklynn is the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 2,919, which makes it the 100th most-given girls’ name of the year — 18 places above the chart.
- Brooklyn2,300
- Brooklynn608
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 551 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 699 for Brooklyn 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 Janice test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Brooklyn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Janice climbed just as high around 1951, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Janice's path sketches the road Brooklyn is walking now.
Brooklyn is coming down from a big peak (#21 in 2011). 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 Brooklyn is headed
Brooklyn is easing off slowly — about 20% 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.
Brooklyn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Brooklyn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads correctly on sight — almost no one hesitates over how to say it, in the US or abroad.
- Comes with ready-made short forms, Brooke and Lyn, both of which are established given names on their own.
- Shares its ending with a familiar family of names — Evelyn, Madelyn, Jocelyn — so it sits comfortably in a class list.
- Anchored to a real, well-documented place with an unbroken paper trail back to a Dutch village.
- The rival spellings are real: Brooklynn, Brooklin and Brookelyn all circulate, so expect to spell it aloud fairly often even though the standard form is the plain one.
- It names a very specific place, and people occasionally assume a family connection to New York. Outside the US it reads as distinctly American.
- Most Brooklyns alive today are children and teenagers, so the name carries a clear generational stamp — less a blank slate than a name of a particular moment.
- Though it is overwhelmingly given to girls in the US, it is used for boys in small numbers, here and in Britain; a boy named Brooklyn will meet more explaining than a girl will.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Brooklyn to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Brooklyn? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Brooklyn
Feminine · #118 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Brooklyns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 124,000 people named Brooklyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Brooklyn?
- Brooklyn is the most-used spelling in US records — 2,300 of the 2,919 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Brooklynn.
- How popular is the name Brooklyn in 2025?
- Brooklyn ranks #118 among US girl names in 2025, with 2,300 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Brooklyn?
- About 1 in every 699 US girls born in 2025 was named Brooklyn — 2,300 in all.
- Will my child share the name Brooklyn with classmates?
- Brooklyn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Brooklyn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Esther#119 · Alaia#117 · Hallie#120 · Raelynn#116 · Eliza#115 · Hadley#121 · Rose#114 · Emerson#122
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Brooklyn? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Brooklyn and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Or jump into a head-to-head
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle