Humanverse

Damaya vs Damien

American parents have registered 65,018 Damiens since 1880, against 553 Damayas. Damien is still ahead, with 935 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Damaya against Damien, 1880 to 2025 0 600 1.2k 1.8k 2.4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Damaya Damien

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

Damien has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1936 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2014, when Damaya had 35 and Damien had 1,509.

Side by side

  Damaya Damien
Total US births 55365,018
Most in one year 352,265
Babies in 2025 12935
Estimated living today 55063,000
Median age today 1520
Peak year 20062007
Best rank 4,165th girls182nd boys
Rank in 2025 8,362nd352nd
First recorded 19981936
Girls / boys 553 / 0261 / 64,757

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 Damiens alive today are over 20; half the Damayas are over 15. That is 5 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

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: Damaya and Damien.