9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data

Joe vs Oliver

How Joe and Oliver 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

Joe

Male · English

Meaning: Abbreviation Of Joseph.

Oliver

Male · French

Meaning: Legend Name

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Joe (boys) vs Oliver (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 Joe Oliver
Peak year (most US births) 1936 — 8,023 boys 2024 — 15,343 boys
Peak rank #23 #3
Most recent rank (2025) #994 (230 births) #3 (14,939 births)
Total US births since 1880 406,270 212,737
Last 10 years (2016–2025) 3,163 142,959

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, Oliver reached 15,343 US births in 2024 — 7,320 more than Joe's peak count.

Crossover Years

Years where one name first passed the other in annual US births. A name "winning" in a year means it had more births that year, not necessarily a higher rank.

Year New leader Joe births Oliver births
2000 Oliver 919 978

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.

Joe — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Texas #381 901
2 Arkansas #435 40
3 Mississippi #473 26
4 Kentucky #600 19
5 Colorado #617 35

Oliver — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Oregon #1 2,043
2 Iowa #1 1,836
3 Utah #1 2,587
4 Idaho #1 1,137
5 Wisconsin #1 2,988

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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 →