Bert vs Bertram

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Bert Bertram

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, Bert for 142 years and Bertram for 4 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

• 1880–1996 Bert ahead
• 1997 Bertram ahead
• 1998–2014 Bert ahead
• 2015 Bertram ahead
• 2016–2023 Bert ahead
• 2024–2025 Bertram ahead

Side by side

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 Berts alive today are over 65; half the Bertrams are over 61. That is 4 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

• Bert Hawaii (4.6×), Oklahoma (2.7×), Montana (2.5×)
• Bertram New York (5.5×), Massachusetts (3.3×), Hawaii (3.1×)

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.

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

• Bert vs Bertha
• Bert vs Bernard
• Bert vs Bernice
• Bert vs Bernadette
• Bert vs Bernadine
• Bert vs Bertie
• Bertram vs Bertha
• Bertram vs Bernard