Brett
given name · English · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Brett is a given name, most frequently recorded in Australia. In New Zealand it is the 78th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: English surname used as a given name; from Old French/Brittonic 'Breton', meaning 'from Brittany'.
- AUAustralia1 in 612◐
- NZNew Zealand1 in 1K
- CACanada1 in 2K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈141K ●
- 4 ●
- Sources
- 528 ●
- 1 in 2.4K ◐
across 9 countries
recorded for this name
1.8M records
Official registry-verified
United States
Spellings & scripts●
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Brad in TH Thailand, LA Laos, MY Malaysia and Bret in SG Singapore, TR Türkiye, ES Spain.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin●
English surname used as a given name; from Old French/Brittonic 'Breton', meaning 'from Brittany'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AU Australia | #111 | 189,477 | 119K rec. | — | 91 | Brett | 282 |
| US United States | #317 | 139,395 | 1.4M rec. | 1 in 2.4K | 139K | Brett | 528 |
| GB United Kingdom | #373 | 75,275 | 70K rec. | — | 10 | Brett | 203 |
| CA Canada | #317 | 40,881 | 33K rec. | — | 15 | Brett | 203 |
| NZ New Zealand | #78 | 8,505 | 7K rec. | — | 16 | Brett | 127 |
| IT Italy | #832 | 6,069 | 6.4K rec. | — | 1 | Brett | 37 |
| ZA South Africa | #640 | 5,924 | 6K rec. | — | — | Brett | 116 |
| RU Russia | — | 3,923 | 4.2K rec. | — | — | Brett | 31 |
| PH Philippines | — | 3,557 | 3.3K rec. | — | — | Brett | 51 |
| TH Thailand | — | 2,288 | 2.3K rec. | — | #902,886 | Brad | 58 |
| IE Ireland | #329 | 1,909 | 2.6K rec. | — | — | Brett | 67 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 706 | 1.5K rec. | 1 in 24K | 706 | Brett | 69 |
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English1.5M89%
- Spanish48K3%
- 18K1%
- German11K1%
- French9.2K1%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 1,548,772 | 89% |
| Spanish | 47,711 | 3% |
| 17,888 | 1% | |
| German | 11,115 | 1% |
| French | 9,198 | 1% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Brett is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In German, from Brett/Brettel or from the noun brett 'board'; also craft names
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In German, Indirect occupational surname: board/wood-related; 332 bearers.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 5: Familiennamen nach Beruf und persönlichen Merkmalen
Transferred use of the surname, which originated in the Middle Ages as an ethnic name for one of the Bretons who arrived in England in the wake of the Norman Conquest. As a surname it is most common in East Anglia, where Breton settlement was particularly concentrated. As a given name, it has enjoyed something of a vogue in the latter half of the 20th century.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, Alternative letter-case form of Brett (“Brettanomyces”).
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, person from Brittany; Breton
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Over time●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1926 | 5 |
| 1929 | 5 |
| 1932 | 5 |
| 1934 | 5 |
| 1935 | 5 |
| 1937 | 5 |
| 1938 | 8 |
| 1939 | 10 |
| 1940 | 14 |
| 1941 | 18 |
| 1942 | 25 |
| 1943 | 25 |
| 1944 | 18 |
| 1945 | 26 |
| 1946 | 48 |
| 1947 | 94 |
| 1948 | 140 |
| 1949 | 139 |
| 1950 | 215 |
| 1951 | 223 |
| 1952 | 251 |
| 1953 | 265 |
| 1954 | 430 |
| 1955 | 464 |
| 1956 | 393 |
| 1957 | 653 |
| 1958 | 2,135 |
| 1959 | 2,226 |
| 1960 | 2,320 |
| 1961 | 2,069 |
| 1962 | 2,494 |
| 1963 | 2,610 |
| 1964 | 2,551 |
| 1965 | 2,342 |
| 1966 | 2,575 |
| 1967 | 2,790 |
| 1968 | 2,901 |
| 1969 | 3,183 |
| 1970 | 3,370 |
| 1971 | 3,357 |
| 1972 | 3,503 |
| 1973 | 3,030 |
| 1974 | 2,677 |
| 1975 | 2,779 |
| 1976 | 2,415 |
| 1977 | 2,489 |
| 1978 | 2,305 |
| 1979 | 2,997 |
| 1980 | 3,128 |
| 1981 | 3,775 |
| 1982 | 4,026 |
| 1983 | 3,975 |
| 1984 | 4,096 |
| 1985 | 4,328 |
| 1986 | 4,729 |
| 1987 | 4,429 |
| 1988 | 4,375 |
| 1989 | 4,428 |
| 1990 | 4,394 |
| 1991 | 4,153 |
| 1992 | 3,823 |
| 1993 | 3,546 |
| 1994 | 3,435 |
| 1995 | 3,567 |
| 1996 | 3,577 |
| 1997 | 3,268 |
| 1998 | 2,886 |
| 1999 | 2,773 |
| 2000 | 2,383 |
| 2001 | 1,964 |
| 2002 | 1,868 |
| 2003 | 1,614 |
| 2004 | 1,565 |
| 2005 | 1,389 |
| 2006 | 1,082 |
| 2007 | 958 |
| 2008 | 1,070 |
| 2009 | 766 |
| 2010 | 729 |
| 2011 | 510 |
| 2012 | 427 |
| 2013 | 360 |
| 2014 | 386 |
| 2015 | 324 |
| 2016 | 333 |
| 2017 | 315 |
| 2018 | 288 |
| 2019 | 275 |
| 2020 | 241 |
| 2021 | 201 |
| 2022 | 216 |
| 2023 | 187 |
| 2024 | 207 |
| 2025 | 133 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 94 years between 1926–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Brett Halseyb. 1933USAmerican actor
- Brett Cullenb. 1956USAmerican actor (born 1956)
- Brett Kavanaughb. 1965USU.S. Supreme Court justice since 2018 (born 1965)
- Brett Ratnerb. 1969USAmerican film director and producer (born 1969)
- Brett Favreb. 1969USAmerican football player (born 1969)
- Brett Gelmanb. 1976USAmerican actor and comedian
- Brett Emertonb. 1979AUAustralian association football player
- Brett Goldsteinb. 1980GBBritish actor and comedian
- Brett Daltonb. 1983USAmerican actor
- Matt Cardonab. 1985USnot in their usual nameAmerican professional wrestler
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
Evidence●
Attested in 65 sources across 34 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 139K | #397 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 5.5K | #6,235 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 5.3K | #6,005 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 5K | #6,481 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.7K | #397 |
| NL Netherlands | Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017) | — | 447 | #3,434 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 133 | — |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 122 | — |
| ES Spain | INE — Apellidos más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 116 | #24,827 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 116 | #24,657 |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 1992 | 91 | #90 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 89 | #5,516 |
Reference works 5
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 771 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Brett?
- We estimate roughly 141 thousand people bear Brett (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
- In which country does Brett have the most bearers?
- Brett is most frequently recorded in Australia, where it is most often spelled brett.
- How common is Brett compared with other names?
- In Australia, Brett is the 111th most common given name of 197,734 given names recorded there.
- Is Brett a male or female name?
- Brett is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What does the name Brett mean?
- Recorded meaning: English surname used as a given name; from Old French/Brittonic 'Breton', meaning 'from Brittany'.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/brettThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.
About this data
Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Brett” — the 111th most common given name in Australia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.