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Dannah vs Danny

American parents have registered 288,341 Dannys since 1880, against 620 Dannahs. Danny is still ahead, with 462 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Dannah against Danny, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Dannah Danny

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

Danny has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1900 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2024, when Dannah had 13 and Danny had 451.

Side by side

  Dannah Danny
Total US births 620288,341
Most in one year 269,126
Babies in 2025 11462
Estimated living today 610212,000
Median age today 2362
Peak year 19991954
Best rank 4,313th girls42nd boys
Rank in 2025 8,860th628th
First recorded 19651900
Girls / boys 620 / 01,693 / 286,648

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 Dannys alive today are over 62; half the Dannahs are over 23. That is 39 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Dannah and Danny.