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Angel vs Angle

American parents have registered 366,174 Angels since 1880, against 1,279 Angles. Angel is still ahead, with 5,308 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Angel Angle

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

Angel has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1888 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1945, when Angel had 149 and Angle had 5.

Side by side

  Angel Angle
Total US births 366,1741,279
Most in one year 13,82857
Babies in 2025 5,308under 5
Estimated living today 352,0001,200
Median age today 2143
Peak year 20061975
Best rank 31st boys1,780th girls
Rank in 2025 67thunranked
First recorded 18881945
Girls / boys 100,288 / 265,8861,149 / 130

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 Angles alive today are over 43; half the Angels are over 21. That is 22 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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