Humanverse

Charlene vs Charlotta

American parents have registered 134,111 Charlenes since 1880, against 966 Charlottas. Charlene is still ahead, with 99 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Charlene against Charlotta, 1880 to 2025 0 1k 2k 3k 4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Charlene Charlotta

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

Of the 135 years in which either name was published, Charlene for 130 years and Charlotta for 5 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Charlene Charlotta
Total US births 134,111966
Most in one year 3,55726
Babies in 2025 99under 5
Estimated living today 96,000610
Median age today 6559
Peak year 19521967
Best rank 106th girls2,376th girls
Rank in 2025 1,942ndunranked
First recorded 18881880
Girls / boys 133,729 / 382966 / 0

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 Charlenes alive today are over 65; half the Charlottas are over 59. That is 6 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 Charlene Charlotta
France 32,780 Charlène5
England and Wales 73512
Switzerland 154 Charlène57

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: Charlene and Charlotta.