Given name & surname · also Irish
Brain
“son of the judge”
Brain is a surname from Irish, ultimately from Scottish Gaelic.
Meaning & origin
What it means
Brain goes back to a word meaning “son of the judge.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Where it comes from
Brain comes from Irish, and ultimately from Scottish Gaelic.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1950. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Brain through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 4,606
- 4,596 boys · 10 girls
- Most popular year
- 1982
- 189 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 6 in 2017. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for boys was 189 in 1982. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 4,359 as a first name in 2020; 1,291 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
Brain’s family of names
Brain may belong to the same name family as BRAINN. This is a tentative spelling connection.
The ring: spellings.
Spellings & scripts 1
The same name written differently, including transliterations into other scripts.
Similar names
If you love Brain, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
Bean
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Shan
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Torry
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Bryant
Bryant is a masculine given name from Irish.
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Shaun
“God is gracious”
98% boys · 2% girls
Kraig
“from the rocky place; as solid as a rock”
>99% boys