Humanverse

Clarene vs Claude

American parents have registered 92,289 Claudes since 1880, against 714 Clarenes. Claude is still ahead, with 40 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Clarene against Claude, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Clarene Claude

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

Claude 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 1937, when Clarene had 28 and Claude had 1,145.

Side by side

  Clarene Claude
Total US births 71492,289
Most in one year 281,910
Babies in 2025 under 540
Estimated living today 25028,000
Median age today 7867
Peak year 19371920
Best rank 1,389th girls92nd boys
Rank in 2025 unranked3,036th
First recorded 19091880
Girls / boys 714 / 0952 / 91,337

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 Clarenes alive today are over 78; half the Claudes are over 67. That is 11 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 Clarene Claude
France 5468,330

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: Clarene and Claude.