Compare Baby Names Side-by-Side
Pick any two US baby names and see how they stack up — popularity over 146 years, peak year, current rank, and which one is rising or falling. Every chart and number is grounded in US Social Security Administration records (1880–2025).
Compare any two names
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Featured Comparisons
Side-by-side breakdowns for the most-searched name face-offs — split into three groups: today's top girls, today's top boys, and cross-era classics that pair a 20th-century dominant name with its modern equivalent.
Today's Top-10 Girls' Face-Offs
Every unordered pair from the most-recent year's top-10 girls' names — 45 face-offs.
Today's Top-10 Boys' Face-Offs
Every unordered pair from the most-recent year's top-10 boys' names — 45 face-offs.
Cross-Era Classics
Each historically dominant name paired against the modern name that has taken its cultural slot — Mary vs Olivia, Linda vs Emma, Michael vs Oliver, and more.
How the comparison works
- Popularity history: annual US births for each name, drawn from SSA's national registry (1880–2025).
- Peak comparison: which name was bigger at its height, by how much, and in what year.
- Current standing: 2025 US rank for each name.
- Crossover years: years where one name first overtook the other in births.
- Regional strength: most recent decade's strongest states for each name.
Data & methodology
All numbers come from the US Social Security Administration's national baby names dataset (CC0 public domain). SSA suppresses any name appearing fewer than 5 times in a year for privacy, so very rare names may show gaps. Spelling variants are counted separately by SSA. State-level coverage runs 1910–2025. Methodology: see full notes.