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Denny vs Denzell

American parents have registered 15,819 Dennys since 1880, against 1,321 Denzells. Denny is still ahead, with 24 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Denny against Denzell, 1880 to 2025 0 125 250 375 500 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Denny 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 123 years in which either name was published, Denny for 119 years and Denzell for 4 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Denny Denzell
Total US births 15,8191,321
Most in one year 445160
Babies in 2025 2412
Estimated living today 11,0001,300
Median age today 5630
Peak year 19471992
Best rank 325th boys834th boys
Rank in 2025 4,249th6,803rd
First recorded 18891987
Girls / boys 402 / 15,4170 / 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 Dennys alive today are over 56; half the Denzells are over 30. That is 26 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 Denny Denzell
England and Wales 86021

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: Denny and Denzell.