Humanverse

Arran vs Arrow

American parents have registered 2,575 Arrows since 1880, against 284 Arrans. Arrow is still ahead, with 113 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Arran against Arrow, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Arran Arrow

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 42 years in which either name was published, Arrow for 26 years and Arran for 16 years. The lead changed hands 8 times.

Side by side

  Arran Arrow
Total US births 2842,575
Most in one year 15283
Babies in 2025 5113
Estimated living today 2802,600
Median age today 196
Peak year 20082018
Best rank 5,767th boys1,122nd boys
Rank in 2025 12,008th1,976th
First recorded 19731971
Girls / boys 0 / 284858 / 1,717

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 Arrans alive today are over 19; half the Arrows are over 6. That is 13 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 Arran Arrow
England and Wales 2,12260
France 55

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: Arran and Arrow.