Humanverse

Bralyn vs Brandon

American parents have registered 774,654 Brandons since 1880, against 862 Bralyns. Brandon is still ahead, with 1,326 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Bralyn against Brandon, 1880 to 2025 0 8k 16k 24k 32k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Bralyn Brandon

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

Brandon has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1914 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2022, when Bralyn had 20 and Brandon had 1,777.

Side by side

  Bralyn Brandon
Total US births 862774,654
Most in one year 6529,724
Babies in 2025 101,326
Estimated living today 850742,000
Median age today 1532
Peak year 20111992
Best rank 2,478th boys6th boys
Rank in 2025 7,679th261st
First recorded 19951914
Girls / boys 331 / 5314,145 / 770,509

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 Brandons alive today are over 32; half the Bralyns are over 15. That is 17 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: Bralyn and Brandon.