Humanverse

Darran vs Darren

American parents have registered 104,506 Darrens since 1880, against 778 Darrans. Darren is still ahead, with 187 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Darran 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

Darren has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1936 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1958, when Darran had 9 and Darren had 424.

Side by side

  Darran Darren
Total US births 778104,506
Most in one year 545,963
Babies in 2025 under 5187
Estimated living today 69094,000
Median age today 5249
Peak year 19651965
Best rank 1,000th boys52nd boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,132nd
First recorded 19581936
Girls / boys 0 / 778569 / 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 Darrans alive today are over 52; half the Darrens are over 49. That is 3 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 Darran Darren
Ireland 40910,418
Scotland 1638,913
England and Wales 403,069

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: Darran and Darren.