9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data Italiano

Duncan vs Liam

How Duncan and Liam compare across 146 years of US Social Security Administration baby-name records — popularity history, peak years, current rank, and which name overtook which.

Open Name Tournament

Duncan

Male · Celtic

Meaning: Dark Skinned Fighter

Liam

Male · Gaelic

Meaning: Helmeted

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Duncan (boys) vs Liam (boys), from US Social Security Administration national records.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Names appearing fewer than 5 times per year are suppressed by SSA.

Quick Stats

Metric Duncan Liam
Peak year (most US births) 2000 — 530 boys 2024 — 22,164 boys
Peak rank #447 #1
Most recent rank (2023) #930 (244 births) #1 (20,818 births)
Total US births since 1880 7,160 343,615
Last 10 years (2014–2023) 2,066 202,429

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, Liam reached 22,164 US births in 2024 — 21,634 more than Duncan's peak count.

Strongest States — Last 10 Years

States where each name ranked highest, from SSA's state-level dataset. Lower average rank = name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name list.

Duncan — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Kansas #548 17
2 Kentucky #554 20
3 Utah #561 54
4 Oregon #580 29
5 Minnesota #600 61

Liam — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Nevada #1 1,758
2 New Jersey #1 6,079
3 Florida #1 14,195
4 Oklahoma #1 1,983
5 New York #1 12,930

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Data & methodology

Source: US Social Security Administration national baby names dataset 1880–2025 (CC0 public domain). Names with fewer than 5 occurrences in a given year are suppressed by SSA. State-level coverage runs 1910–2025. Crossover detection compares annual birth counts (not ranks) for each year both names appear. Methodology: see full notes. More comparisons →