Claiborne vs Clarence
American parents have registered 305,423 Clarences since 1880, against 1,237 Claibornes. Clarence is still ahead, with 117 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Claiborne Clarence
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
Clarence 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 2016, when Claiborne had 13 and Clarence had 156.
Side by side
| Claiborne | Clarence | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 1,237 | 305,423 |
| Most in one year | 27 | 7,367 |
| Babies in 2025 | under 5 | 117 |
| Estimated living today | 600 | 83,000 |
| Median age today | 51 | 66 |
| Peak year | 1918 | 1921 |
| Best rank | 1,373rd boys | 28th boys |
| Rank in 2025 | unranked | 1,499th |
| First recorded | 1889 | 1880 |
| Girls / boys | 27 / 1,210 | 1,859 / 303,564 |
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 Clarences alive today are over 66; half the Claibornes are over 51. That is 15 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Claiborne Louisiana (28.5×), Virginia (15.4×), North Carolina (4.4×)
- Clarence West Virginia (2.3×), Louisiana (2.3×), North Dakota (2.1×)
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: Claiborne and Clarence.