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Darrell vs Darrien

American parents have registered 160,952 Darrells since 1880, against 3,636 Darriens. Darrell is still ahead, with 97 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Darrell against Darrien, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Darrell Darrien

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

Darrell has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1886 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1998, when Darrell had 533 and Darrien had 180.

Side by side

  Darrell Darrien
Total US births 160,9523,636
Most in one year 4,797203
Babies in 2025 9724
Estimated living today 113,0003,500
Median age today 5926
Peak year 19581995
Best rank 90th boys892nd boys
Rank in 2025 1,688th4,249th
First recorded 18861960
Girls / boys 1,186 / 159,766361 / 3,275

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 Darrells alive today are over 59; half the Darriens are over 26. That is 33 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 Darrell Darrien
England and Wales 2696

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: Darrell and Darrien.