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Daniel vs Daniels

American parents have registered 1,991,091 Daniels since 1880, against 39 Danielses. Daniel is still ahead, with 8,093 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Daniel against Daniels, 1880 to 2025 0 10k 20k 30k 40k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Daniel Daniels

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

Daniel 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 1945, when Daniel had 9,740 and Daniels had 7.

Side by side

  Daniel Daniels
Total US births 1,991,09139
Most in one year 38,8537
Babies in 2025 8,093under 5
Estimated living today 1.6 million30
Median age today 4040
Peak year 19851945
Best rank 5th boys2,743rd boys
Rank in 2025 22ndunranked
First recorded 18801945
Girls / boys 8,279 / 1,982,8120 / 39

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.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Daniel Daniels
England and Wales 121,704226
Ireland 29,75758
Scotland 18,8253

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: Daniel and Daniels.