Brain
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Brain has been given to 4,606 babies in the U.S. since 1950. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1982, with 189 recorded.
Babies named Brain, 2017
1 in 596,000
Brain over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Brain?
Brain had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2017, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2017
- 1 in 596,000
- 6 of 3,577,106 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 308,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2017
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 413,245 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Brain sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2017 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 413,245 children born in 2017 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Brain. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Brains were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Brain was born before 1979 — so the typical Brain is around 46 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1970s
- 35.5% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 9.8%
- Mostly a past generation
- Recorded since 1950
- 4,596
- People you could plausibly meet
1970s — 35.5% of all recorded uses (1,633).
Is Brain rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1982 (189)
- Years since peak
- 43
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 23.5% average annual change
Spellings of Brain
Brain is not the most common spelling — Brian is, with 47.5% against Brain's 0.19%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Where Brain is used
Across 1910–2025, Brain was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 33,333 boys, against 1 in 59,164 across all states with data. It was least common in Wisconsin (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1California1 in 33,333
- 2Florida1 in 33,333
- 3Illinois1 in 33,333
- 4Louisiana1 in 33,333
- 5Michigan1 in 33,333
- 6New York1 in 50,000
- 7Ohio1 in 50,000
- 8Pennsylvania1 in 50,000
Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Brain has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Brain around the world
Where Brain ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- Ireland1999–1999#379in 1999
Popularity data from Central Statistics Office. CSO data under CC BY 4.0.
Brain by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a boy's name
Names similar to Brain
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Names with a curve like Brain
Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Brain, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.
Sibling names for Brain
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.