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Bassel vs Bastian

American parents have registered 2,614 Bastians since 1880, against 296 Bassels. Bastian is still ahead, with 219 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Bassel against Bastian, 1880 to 2025 0 60 120 180 240 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Bassel Bastian

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 39 years in which either name was published, Bastian for 33 years and Bassel for 6 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Bassel Bastian
Total US births 2962,614
Most in one year 16224
Babies in 2025 5219
Estimated living today 2902,600
Median age today 167
Peak year 20132024
Best rank 5,404th boys1,001st boys
Rank in 2025 12,008th1,021st
First recorded 19801991
Girls / boys 0 / 2960 / 2,614

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 Bassels alive today are over 16; half the Bastians are over 7. That is 9 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 Bassel Bastian
France 752,665
England and Wales 25137

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: Bassel and Bastian.