Name Awesome

Brennan

#1,003 in 2025UnisexBoys' nameGirls' name

Descendant of Braonán or Branán; drop or little raven

Brennan has been given to 35,487 babies in the U.S. since 1916. In 2025 it ranked #1,003 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2009, with 1,464 recorded. It's used for both sexes: 94% boys, 6% girls all-time.

Babies named Brennan, 2025

1 in 14,700

Brennan over time, 1880–2025

BoysGirls
05001K1.5K18801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Girls or boys — Brennan over time

In 2025, Brennan went to 4% girls and 96% boys.

19162025

A sex is only published in years it reached five applications, so a stretch at 0% or 100% means the other side stayed under that floor — not that it was never used.

Brennan: meaning, origin, and history

Descendant of Braonán or Branán; drop or little raven

Irish surname

About Brennan

Brennan comes from an Irish surname with two older branches, one connected with a drop of water and another with a little raven. Its two-syllable sound has made it a modern alternative to Brendan and Brandon. Writer Brennan Lee Mulligan and music producer Brennan Heart are contemporary bearers.

Irish meaning and history

Brennan is an English rendering of Ó Braonáin, a surname identifying descendants of someone called Braonán. That older personal name combines Irish braon, “rain,” “moisture,” or “drop,” with a diminutive ending.

The same English surname can also represent Ó Branáin or Mac Branáin, referring to descendants or sons of Branán. That older name means “little raven,” giving Brennan a separate bird-name connection.

As a modern given name, Brennan has been used as an alternative to the similar-sounding Brendan and Brandon since the 1960s. Those names have separate histories; the resemblance does not make them spelling variants.

Pronunciation

Brennan is usually BREN-un in English, with stress on the first syllable. The doubled n does not add a syllable.

Its final sound is unstressed, while the opening keeps a short e vowel. Bren could serve as a suggested everyday shortening. The full form retains the clear two-part rhythm also heard in its surname use.

Brennan Lee Mulligan and storytelling

Mulligan is a writer, improviser, actor, and game master. On Dimension 20, his work combines the preparation of a fictional world with decisions made by performers playing within it.

His background includes teaching and performing with the Upright Citizens Brigade and work with Story Pirates and the Wayfinder Experience. Those settings connect improvisation with collaborative storytelling.

He also co-created the webcomic and graphic-novel series Strong Female Protagonist and hosted The Adventuring Academy, a programme about fantasy gaming.

His CollegeHumor sketch Tide CEO won a 2019 Webby Award. The range from sketch comedy to extended role-playing stories gives Brennan a connection with several forms of contemporary comic writing.

Brennan Heart and electronic music

Brennan Heart is the professional name of Dutch producer Fabian Bohn. Before concentrating on hardstyle, he experimented with electronic styles including techno and trance.

His work combines forceful percussion with melodic elements and has included the album Musical Impressions. He has also remixed recordings by other dance artists.

In 2015, he launched I AM HARDSTYLE, developing the idea beyond an individual recording career into events, a record label, and radio programming. This adopted use of Brennan sits alongside its use as Mulligan's given name.

American popularity

Brennan's strongest United States boys' year was 2009, with 1,464 births at #242. There had been 1,158 births in 2000, compared with 226 in 2025.

Girls' use forms a smaller parallel series, with ten recorded in 2025. The American record shows its largest wave around the opening decade of the twenty-first century, followed by lower counts.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning and history draw on the references below. American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling; counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted. Existing Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA. Informal shortening suggestions are identified in the prose.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How popular is Brennan?

In 2025, Brennan ranked #1,003 among boys in the United States, with 226 recorded uses. The U.S. birth records first list this spelling for boys in 1916; its largest annual count was 1,464 in 2009. Rankings count each spelling separately. They describe national use, so local familiarity can differ. The popularity chart shows whether the name has remained common, returned after a quieter period, or risen recently.

How common is Brennan?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 14,700
226 of 3,315,165 births
Among boys only
1 in 7,560
0.01% of boys
Rank, 2025
#1,003
of 13,926 boys’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
10,169 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Brennan sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 5003%

Put another way: gather 10,169 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Brennan. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Brennans were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Brennan was born before 2003 — so the typical Brennan is around 22 today.

Median birth year
2003
About 22 years old
Biggest decade
2000s
35.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
59.1%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
33,247
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2000s — 35.3% of all recorded uses (11,745).

Is Brennan 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
+54
Places climbed
Rank vs 5 years ago
−239
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−559
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.33×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
15.4%
Peak was 2009 (1,464)
Years since peak
16
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Steady
11.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#242
2009

Spellings of Brennan

Brennan is not the most common spelling — Brendan is, with 42.1% against Brennan's 15.2%.

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 Brennan is used — boys

Across 2016–2025, Brennan was most concentrated in Louisiana — about 1 in 1,316 boys, against 1 in 5,508 across all states with data. It was least common in Utah (1 in 16,667).

676 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Louisiana1 in 1,316
  2. 2Mississippi1 in 3,125
  3. 3Tennessee1 in 3,125
  4. 4Kentucky1 in 3,571
  5. 5Pennsylvania1 in 3,571
  6. 6Ohio1 in 3,704
  7. 7Virginia1 in 3,704
  8. 8West Virginia1 in 3,704

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.

Geographically, Brennan is somewhat regional — more concentrated than 63% of the names used widely enough to compare. See the most regional names

Where Brennan is used — girls

Across 1910–2025, Brennan was most concentrated in North Carolina — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 205,279 across all states with data. It was least common in South Carolina (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1North Carolina1 in 100,000
  2. 2Tennessee1 in 100,000
  3. 3Texas1 in 100,000
  4. 4Virginia1 in 100,000
  5. 5Alabama1 in —
  6. 6California1 in —
  7. 7Florida1 in —
  8. 8Georgia1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls 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. Brennan has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Brennan around the world

Where Brennan 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.

  • England & Wales
    1996–2025
    #2,664
    in 2025
  • Scotland
    2006–2022
    #703
    in 2022
  • France
    1999–2020
    #4,250
    in 2020
  • Canada
    1991–2024
    #2,550
    in 2024
  • South Australia
    1965–2013
    #754
    in 2013

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Brennan

People whose public names include Brennan, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Brennan by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
#1,003
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 239
Best rank ever
#242
2009
Peak year
2009
1,464 that year
First recorded
1916
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
33,258
Count in 2025
226

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#9,554
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 5,274
Best rank ever
#1,862
1994
Peak year
2007
100 that year
First recorded
1973
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
2,229
Count in 2025
10

Names similar to Brennan

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

BrendenBrendonBrentonBrendanBrennenBreckenBrenanBrennonBretKeenanBrentleyBrentBrettBrentlyBrextonBrendynRonanBreckinBrennerBreydenBrettonHernanBrewerBreck

Names with a curve like Brennan

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Brennan, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

SkylerDrakeTrentonTreySkylarKeatonJavonNikolasCollinDonovanKeeganQuinn

Sibling names for Brennan

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Brennan

Top names of 2009, Brennan's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 2009Boys' names starting with BIrish Boy Names