9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data Italiano

Gibson vs Alexander

How Gibson and Alexander 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

Gibson

Male · English

Meaning: Gilbert's Son

Alexander

Male · Greek

Meaning: Defender Of Man

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Gibson (boys) vs Alexander (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 Gibson Alexander
Peak year (most US births) 2013 — 262 boys 1993 — 20,529 boys
Peak rank #824 #21
Most recent rank (2018) #974 (213 births) #30 (7,230 births)
Total US births since 1880 2,088 657,737
Last 10 years (2009–2018) 2,088 100,533

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, Alexander reached 20,529 US births in 1993 — 20,267 more than Gibson'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.

Gibson — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Iowa #428 24
2 Kentucky #572 20
3 Michigan #599 97
4 Missouri #602 36
5 Oklahoma #619 39

Alexander — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 California #10 14,894
2 Arizona #10 2,337
3 Illinois #10 4,042
4 Nevada #11 990
5 Florida #11 6,338

Want a different comparison?

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 →