Humanverse

Darrah vs Darren

American parents have registered 104,506 Darrens since 1880, against 820 Darrahs. Darren is still ahead, with 187 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Darrah 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 86 years in which either name was published, Darren for 85 years and Darrah for 1 year. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Darrah Darren
Total US births 820104,506
Most in one year 425,963
Babies in 2025 under 5187
Estimated living today 79094,000
Median age today 3449
Peak year 20041965
Best rank 3,490th girls52nd boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,132nd
First recorded 19421936
Girls / boys 820 / 0569 / 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 Darrens alive today are over 49; half the Darrahs are over 34. 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 Darrah Darren
Scotland 38,913

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: Darrah and Darren.