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Broadus vs Brooks

American parents have registered 59,639 Brookses since 1880, against 905 Broaduses. Brooks is still ahead, with 4,965 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Broadus Brooks

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

Brooks 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 1923, when Broadus had 31 and Brooks had 54.

Side by side

  Broadus Brooks
Total US births 90559,639
Most in one year 324,965
Babies in 2025 under 54,965
Estimated living today 25056,000
Median age today 706
Peak year 19242025
Best rank 1,287th boys64th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked64th
First recorded 19001880
Girls / boys 0 / 9051,693 / 57,946

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 Broaduses alive today are over 70; half the Brookses are over 6. That is 64 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: Broadus and Brooks.