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Beatrice vs Beaulah

American parents have registered 195,653 Beatrices since 1880, against 2,273 Beaulahs. Beatrice is still ahead, with 583 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Beatrice against Beaulah, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Beatrice Beaulah

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

Beatrice 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 1883, when Beatrice had 126 and Beaulah had 6.

Side by side

  Beatrice Beaulah
Total US births 195,6532,273
Most in one year 5,99481
Babies in 2025 583under 5
Estimated living today 48,000290
Median age today 6581
Peak year 19211921
Best rank 41st girls813th girls
Rank in 2025 508thunranked
First recorded 18801882
Girls / boys 194,920 / 7332,273 / 0

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 Beaulahs alive today are over 81; half the Beatrices are over 65. That is 16 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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