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Darlene vs Darran

American parents have registered 205,546 Darlenes since 1880, against 778 Darrans. Darlene is still ahead, with 108 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Darlene Darran

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

Darlene has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1896 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2021, when Darlene had 103 and Darran had 5.

Side by side

  Darlene Darran
Total US births 205,546778
Most in one year 8,30754
Babies in 2025 108under 5
Estimated living today 143,000690
Median age today 6752
Peak year 19581965
Best rank 49th girls1,000th boys
Rank in 2025 1,844thunranked
First recorded 18961958
Girls / boys 204,942 / 6040 / 778

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 Darlenes alive today are over 67; half the Darrans are over 52. That is 15 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 Darlene Darran
Ireland 11409
Scotland 36163
England and Wales 7240

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: Darlene and Darran.