Brynn
- Pronunciation
- [Brynn]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Hill Or Mound
- Origin
- Welsh
About the Name Brynn
Brynn descends from the Welsh bryn meaning "hill" or "mound." The name has been used in Welsh naming traditions for centuries, originally as a unisex name referring to hilly landscapes. The contemporary American Brynn surge is essentially a 20th-21st century phenomenon and has been used predominantly for girls.
The name belongs to the broader contemporary American category of short Welsh-derived girls' names alongside Bryn, Brielle, and Brooke. Notable bearers include American actress Brynn Thayer (born 1949, the American actress of One Life to Live); contemporary American gymnast Brynn Frazier; and various contemporary American athletes.
Brynn's American climb is recent: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 1995 to the US top 300 girls' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name has been used predominantly for girls. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the Welsh heritage, the compact one-syllable structure with the distinctive double-N ending, and the modern visual presence. The name reads as both classical-Celtic and contemporary American. Common nicknames are scarce since the name is already short — Bryn (the alternate spelling) and the rare Brynnie each occasionally appear; the alternate spellings Bryn (Welsh original spelling), Brynne, and Brin have their own SSA tracking. International forms include the original Welsh bryn (essentially identical).
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Brynn
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Brynn by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2011 with 1,665 girls named Brynn (girl rank #192 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #407 for girls (767 US births). That's 215 places below its 2011 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Brynn Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Brynn the strongest states are Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vermont | #83 | 17 |
| 2 | Alaska | #119 | 19 |
| 3 | North Dakota | #140 | 61 |
| 4 | Rhode Island | #143 | 20 |
| 5 | Minnesota | #147 | 358 |
| 6 | Iowa | #158 | 201 |
| 7 | Delaware | #162 | 17 |
| 8 | New Hampshire | #166 | 43 |
| 9 | Maine | #168 | 57 |
| 10 | Hawaii | #170 | 18 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | #792 | 33 |
| 2 | Tennessee | #629 | 105 |
| 3 | Texas | #614 | 475 |
| 4 | Georgia | #584 | 170 |
| 5 | Florida | #544 | 294 |
| 6 | California | #537 | 624 |
| 7 | Kentucky | #536 | 73 |
| 8 | Oklahoma | #528 | 64 |
| 9 | South Carolina | #501 | 66 |
| 10 | Nevada | #448 | 27 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Brynn in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Looking for names like Brynn?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Brynn to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Brynn against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).