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Bryden vs Bryson

American parents have registered 83,525 Brysons since 1880, against 1,968 Brydens. Bryson is still ahead, with 2,416 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Bryden Bryson

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

Bryson 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 1977, when Bryden had 5 and Bryson had 54.

Side by side

  Bryden Bryson
Total US births 1,96883,525
Most in one year 1494,687
Babies in 2025 312,416
Estimated living today 1,90082,000
Median age today 1312
Peak year 20132017
Best rank 1,203rd boys86th boys
Rank in 2025 3,583rd152nd
First recorded 19771914
Girls / boys 28 / 1,940284 / 83,241

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.

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 Bryden Bryson
England and Wales 15374
Scotland 1120
France 1010

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: Bryden and Bryson.