Humanverse

Daniel vs Dano

American parents have registered 1,991,091 Daniels since 1880, against 36 Danos. Daniel is still ahead, with 8,093 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Daniel Dano

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 1954, when Daniel had 25,317 and Dano had 8.

Side by side

  Daniel Dano
Total US births 1,991,09136
Most in one year 38,8538
Babies in 2025 8,093under 5
Estimated living today 1.6 million30
Median age today 4056
Peak year 19851954
Best rank 5th boys2,942nd boys
Rank in 2025 22ndunranked
First recorded 18801954
Girls / boys 8,279 / 1,982,8120 / 36

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 Danos alive today are over 56; half the Daniels are over 40. That is 16 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 Daniel Dano
Switzerland 4,13729

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 Dano.