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Alder vs Aldrich

American parents have registered 1,431 Alders since 1880, against 614 Aldriches. Alder is still ahead, with 139 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Alder against Aldrich, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Alder Aldrich

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

Of the 75 years in which either name was published, Aldrich for 50 years and Alder for 25 years. The lead changed hands 10 times.

Side by side

  Alder Aldrich
Total US births 1,431614
Most in one year 13918
Babies in 2025 1396
Estimated living today 1,400380
Median age today 520
Peak year 20252017
Best rank 1,401st boys5,111th boys
Rank in 2025 1,401st10,695th
First recorded 19031909
Girls / boys 68 / 1,3630 / 614

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 Aldriches alive today are over 20; half the Alders are over 5. That is 15 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 Alder Aldrich
England and Wales 96

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: Alder and Aldrich.