Humanverse

Bernardo vs Bernice

American parents have registered 185,533 Bernices since 1880, against 11,175 Bernardos. But in 2025 it was Bernardo that was commoner, 140 babies to 35.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Bernardo against Bernice, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Bernardo Bernice

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 146 years in which either name was published, Bernice for 107 years and Bernardo for 39 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Bernardo Bernice
Total US births 11,175185,533
Most in one year 2406,309
Babies in 2025 14035
Estimated living today 9,40039,000
Median age today 3074
Peak year 19951921
Best rank 683rd boys39th girls
Rank in 2025 1,347th4,067th
First recorded 18881880
Girls / boys 0 / 11,175182,130 / 3,403

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 Bernices alive today are over 74; half the Bernardos are over 30. That is 44 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 Bernardo Bernice
England and Wales 261340
France 465120
Ireland 35260
Belgium 125

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: Bernardo and Bernice.