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Denis vs Denzell

American parents have registered 21,606 Denises since 1880, against 1,321 Denzells. Denis is still ahead, with 101 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Denis against Denzell, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Denis Denzell

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 141 years in which either name was published, Denis for 138 years and Denzell for 3 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Denis Denzell
Total US births 21,6061,321
Most in one year 625160
Babies in 2025 10112
Estimated living today 15,0001,300
Median age today 5730
Peak year 19521992
Best rank 277th boys834th boys
Rank in 2025 1,708th6,803rd
First recorded 18801987
Girls / boys 873 / 20,7330 / 1,321

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 Denises alive today are over 57; half the Denzells are over 30. That is 27 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 Denis Denzell
England and Wales 2,57421

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: Denis and Denzell.