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Alexander vs Alexandru

American parents have registered 740,668 Alexanders since 1880, against 614 Alexandrus. Alexander is still ahead, with 7,244 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Alexander against Alexandru, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Alexander Alexandru

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

Alexander 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 2014, when Alexander had 15,482 and Alexandru had 33.

Side by side

  Alexander Alexandru
Total US births 740,668614
Most in one year 20,70834
Babies in 2025 7,2449
Estimated living today 676,000610
Median age today 2416
Peak year 19932006
Best rank 21st boys3,153rd boys
Rank in 2025 30th8,243rd
First recorded 18801981
Girls / boys 4,545 / 736,1230 / 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 Alexanders alive today are over 24; half the Alexandrus are over 16. That is 8 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

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

Country Alexander Alexandru
England and Wales 86,7961,715
Scotland 15,22428
Norway 12,762221
Poland 7,6067
Belgium 6,377335
Italy 4,5471,808
Ireland 5,357252
Switzerland 3,64640
France 2,650675

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: Alexander and Alexandru.