Humanverse

Charlene vs Charmane

American parents have registered 134,111 Charlenes since 1880, against 755 Charmanes. Charlene is still ahead, with 99 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Charlene Charmane

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

Charlene has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1888 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1993, when Charlene had 427 and Charmane had 17.

Side by side

  Charlene Charmane
Total US births 134,111755
Most in one year 3,55731
Babies in 2025 99under 5
Estimated living today 96,000690
Median age today 6552
Peak year 19521970
Best rank 106th girls2,395th girls
Rank in 2025 1,942ndunranked
First recorded 18881944
Girls / boys 133,729 / 382755 / 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 Charmanes are over 52. That is 13 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 Charmane
France 32,780 Charlène5

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 Charmane.