Brynn
Feminine · Welsh roots · “hill (Welsh)”
Brynn is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 29,816 girls against 395 boys since 1880.
Brynn is the Welsh word for hill — bryn — carried into English with an extra n. It appears in Welsh place names across Wales and in the Pennsylvania towns Welsh settlers named after home, Bryn Mawr among them. One syllable, closed at both ends, said and finished in a breath.
How old is the name Brynn?
Brynn first appears in US birth records in 1943 — 82 years ago. The typical Brynn alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 29,500 people named Brynn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Brynn most popular?
Brynn peaked in 2012, reaching #189 nationally. Today it ranks #407, 218 places below that high. See the whole 2012 chart.
Brynn appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From bryn (Welsh for hill) to Brynn
The story of Brynn
The root is the common Welsh noun bryn, hill, which is why it turns up so often on maps: Bryn Mawr, 'big hill', Brynmawr in Gwent, and the Pennsylvania Bryn Mawr that Welsh settlers named after a farm back home. As a personal name, Bryn was taken up in Wales during the twentieth century for boys, sometimes as a short form of Brynmor. The doubled spelling, Brynn, took a different road: in American records it belongs almost entirely to girls, and it was quietly on the books for decades before the wave that lifted it. So two conventions now coexist — Bryn for men in Wales, Brynn for women in the United States.
Meaning
hill (Welsh)
Welsh bryn is an ordinary landscape word, still in everyday use, and it sits inside longer names such as Brynmor, 'great hill'. The doubled -nn is an English-language respelling rather than a separate word.
How the name formed
- brynWelsh for hill
- Bryn
- Brynn
Related forms: Bryn · Brynne · Brinn · Brynmor
Pronouncing Brynn
BRIN
Rhymes with win. The Welsh y in bryn is a short i, so the English and Welsh pronunciations agree; there is no second syllable and no ambiguity to explain.
Nicknames for Brynn
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
- 1943
- Most girls named
- 20111,665 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #189reached in 2012
- Change vs 2023
- +3.5%767 in 2025, from 741
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.
Brynn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bryn in Welsh — same name
- Brynne in English — spelling variant
- Brinn in English — spelling variant
- Brynmor in Welsh — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Pennsylvania, Texas.
Brynns among us
people named Brynn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,096 born in 2025 was named Brynn
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Brynn
- #407
- Brynn on the 2025 chart
- #353
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Brynn went to 767 girls in 2025, but Bryn and Brinn are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 870, which makes it the 353rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 54 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 1,847 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 2,096 for Brynn 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 Shauna test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Brynn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Shauna climbed just as high around 1979, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Shauna's path sketches the road Brynn is walking now.
Brynn 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 Brynn is headed
Brynn should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Brynn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Brynn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, phonetic, and pronounced the same by English and Welsh speakers alike — nobody has to be corrected twice.
- The meaning is plain and documented: hill, from an ordinary Welsh word still in daily use.
- On American records for generations before it became fashionable, so it is neither new nor tied to one moment.
- Short enough to sit comfortably in front of a long or multi-part surname.
- Bryn, Brynn, Brynne and Brinn are all in circulation, so expect to spell it aloud — short work, but a lifelong habit.
- In Wales and among Welsh speakers, Bryn is a man's name. A Brynn traveling in Britain may meet men who share the sound.
- It grew alongside a crowded set of similar openings — Brynlee, Brinley, Brielle — and can be misheard as one of them on a first introduction.
- It is already as short as a name gets: no built-in nickname, and no longer formal version to grow into. Some families like that; it is worth deciding on purpose.
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Brynn
Feminine · Welsh roots · #407 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Brynns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 29,500 people named Brynn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Brynn?
- Brynn is the most-used spelling in US records — 767 of the 870 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Bryn and Brinn.
- How popular is the name Brynn in 2025?
- Brynn ranks #407 among US girl names in 2025, with 767 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Brynn?
- About 1 in every 2,096 US girls born in 2025 was named Brynn — 767 in all.
- Will my child share the name Brynn with classmates?
- Brynn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Brynn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Angela#408 · Lana#406 · Annalise#409 · Carolina#405 · Raven#404 · Mckenna#410 · Journey#411 · Taylor#403
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Brynn? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Brynn and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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