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Darel vs Darren

American parents have registered 104,506 Darrens since 1880, against 2,173 Darels. Darren is still ahead, with 187 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Darel against Darren, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Darel Darren

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

Of the 111 years in which either name was published, Darren for 73 years and Darel for 38 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Darel Darren
Total US births 2,173104,506
Most in one year 525,963
Babies in 2025 52187
Estimated living today 1,50094,000
Median age today 5449
Peak year 20251965
Best rank 2,539th boys52nd boys
Rank in 2025 2,539th1,132nd
First recorded 19151936
Girls / boys 5 / 2,168569 / 103,937

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 Darels alive today are over 54; half the Darrens are over 49. 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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Darel Darren
France 2551,320

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: Darel and Darren.