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Darlene vs Daryel

American parents have registered 205,546 Darlenes since 1880, against 556 Daryels. Darlene is still ahead, with 108 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Darlene Daryel

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 Daryel had 14.

Side by side

  Darlene Daryel
Total US births 205,546556
Most in one year 8,30719
Babies in 2025 10813
Estimated living today 143,000450
Median age today 6750
Peak year 19581955
Best rank 49th girls1,791st boys
Rank in 2025 1,844th6,446th
First recorded 18961926
Girls / boys 204,942 / 6040 / 556

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 Daryels are over 50. That is 17 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 Daryel
France 4405

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 Daryel.