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Darrell vs Darryl

American parents have registered 160,952 Darrells since 1880, against 93,419 Darryls. Darrell is still ahead, with 97 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Darrell Darryl

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 136 years in which either name was published, Darrell for 129 years and Darryl for 7 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Darrell Darryl
Total US births 160,95293,419
Most in one year 4,7975,178
Babies in 2025 9769
Estimated living today 113,00075,000
Median age today 5959
Peak year 19581961
Best rank 90th boys80th boys
Rank in 2025 1,688th2,108th
First recorded 18861913
Girls / boys 1,186 / 159,7661,134 / 92,285

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.

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 Darryl
England and Wales 269419
Scotland 144450
France 135355
Ireland 159266
Northern Ireland 990

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 Darryl.