Humanverse

Brena vs Brent

American parents have registered 140,366 Brents since 1880, against 794 Brenas. Brent is still ahead, with 116 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Brena against Brent, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Brena Brent

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

Brent has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1885 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2013, when Brena had 25 and Brent had 289.

Side by side

  Brena Brent
Total US births 794140,366
Most in one year 364,300
Babies in 2025 under 5116
Estimated living today 770122,000
Median age today 2547
Peak year 20071970
Best rank 4,213th girls74th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,509th
First recorded 19501885
Girls / boys 794 / 0567 / 139,799

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 Brents alive today are over 47; half the Brenas are over 25. That is 22 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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