From the name of the region in the northwest of France, called in French Bretagne. It was named for the Britons who settled there after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the invasions of the Anglo-Saxons. As a given name, it first came into common use in America in the early 1970s, reaching the third ranked spot for girls by 1989. This was an extraordinary increase over only two decades, though it has since fallen almost as dramatically as it climbed.