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Carah vs Carlos

American parents have registered 309,076 Carloses since 1880, against 881 Carahs. Carlos is still ahead, with 2,418 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Carah against Carlos, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Carah Carlos

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

Carlos 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 2012, when Carah had 27 and Carlos had 4,017.

Side by side

  Carah Carlos
Total US births 881309,076
Most in one year 396,864
Babies in 2025 52,418
Estimated living today 870274,000
Median age today 2530
Peak year 20002001
Best rank 3,404th girls59th boys
Rank in 2025 14,942nd150th
First recorded 19691880
Girls / boys 881 / 02,040 / 307,036

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 Carloses alive today are over 30; half the Carahs are over 25. That is 5 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Carah Carlos
England and Wales 101,318

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: Carah and Carlos.