Brooklyn
Masculine · “broken land”
Brooklyn is given to girls far more often — 125,197 girls against 1,858 boys since 1880. See Brooklyn as a girl name
Brooklyn is a New York borough named by Dutch settlers for a town in the Netherlands. It is given to girls in far larger numbers than boys, and this page is written for both, because the place and the word are the same either way.
How old is the name Brooklyn?
Brooklyn first appears in US birth records in 1979 — 46 years ago. The typical Brooklyn alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 1,800 people named Brooklyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Brooklyn most popular?
Brooklyn peaked in 2009, reaching #1409 nationally. Today it ranks #3181, 1,772 places below that high. See the whole 2009 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Breukelen to Brooklyn
The story of Brooklyn
Breukelen is a real town in the province of Utrecht, and Dutch colonists gave its name to a settlement on Long Island in the seventeenth century. English speakers reshaped it as Brookland and then Brooklyn, which reads in English as a brook and a lyn and means neither. Its use as a given name is recent and American, and it belongs to the same group as Dakota, Austin and Aspen — places used as names, given to children of both sexes.
Meaningscholars disagree
broken land, or marshland
The Dutch village of Breukelen gave the borough its name. The village name is read either as broken ground — land cleared or broken for farming — or as marshy ground; both readings are current among Dutch place-name scholars.
How the name formed
- Breukelen
- Brooklyn
Related forms: Breukelen
Pronouncing Brooklyn
BROOK-lin
Two syllables, first stressed. The Dutch original is said BRUR-kuh-len and shares almost nothing with it.
Nicknames for Brooklyn
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
- 1979
- Most boys named
- 2009120 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1409reached in 2009
- Change vs 2024
- −40.3%37 in 2025, from 62
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, New York, Florida.
Brooklyns among us
people named Brooklyn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 46,164 born in 2025 was named Brooklyn
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 Jerrett 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: Jerrett climbed just as high around 1980, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jerrett's path sketches the road Brooklyn is walking now.
Brooklyn 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
Where Brooklyn is headed
Brooklyn should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium 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 boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A real place with four hundred years of documented history behind the word.
- Everyone can say it and spell it without being taught.
- Brook and Brooks give it two plainer forms to fall back on.
- The name is read as a girl's by default in the United States, and a boy carrying it will correct that often.
- Naming a child for a place invites the question of whether the family is from there.
- Brooklyn, Brooklynn and Brookelyn are all used, chiefly for girls, and confusion follows.
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
Masculine · #3181 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 1,800 people named Brooklyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Brooklyn in 2025?
- Brooklyn ranks #3181 among US boy names in 2025, with 37 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Brooklyn?
- About 1 in every 46,164 US boys born in 2025 was named Brooklyn — 37 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.
Diamond#3181 · Walden#3181 · Tobin#3181 · Keion#3181 · Artem#3181 · Arsh#3181 · Kris#3181 · Esau#3181
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.
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
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