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Addam vs Addison

American parents have registered 162,320 Addisons since 1880, against 753 Addams. Addison is still ahead, with 3,033 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Addam against Addison, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Addam Addison

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Addison has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1978, when Addam had 24 and Addison had 25.

Side by side

  Addam Addison
Total US births 753162,320
Most in one year 3312,290
Babies in 2025 53,033
Estimated living today 720159,000
Median age today 3514
Peak year 19842007
Best rank 1,723rd boys11th girls
Rank in 2025 12,008th84th
First recorded 19651880
Girls / boys 0 / 753148,893 / 13,427

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Addams alive today are over 35; half the Addisons are over 14. That is 21 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Addam Addison
England and Wales 192,766
France 25140

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Addam and Addison.