The most common player names of the 1980s and 90s have made way for the rise of Jack, Tom, Sam and Lachlan
The AFL was once rife with Steves, Stephens and Stevens. But no more – with the shock retirement of Steven May at Melbourne before the season began, there’s only one left: Greater Western Sydney’s Stephen Coniglio. It’s the end of a long downward trend since the early 1990s, when more than 25 Steves took to the field.
Just as with all baby names (even for babies who go on to other professions), AFL names seem to be cyclical. The most common name in the AFL in 2026 is Jack, followed by Tom, Sam and Lachlan (see notes below). There are almost 30 Jacks in the league this year, but for a couple of decades starting in the 80s, there were only a handful.
Names of AFL players taken from AFL Tables and data does not include players who did not play a game during the season.
Some commonly shortened names were normalised and combined (Josh and Joshua, for instance) for analysis, but this was not possible for all names.