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Derek vs Derian

American parents have registered 239,969 Dereks since 1880, against 1,659 Derians. Derek is still ahead, with 1,191 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Derek against Derian, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Derek Derian

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

Derek has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1924 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2024, when Derek had 1,357 and Derian had 59.

Side by side

  Derek Derian
Total US births 239,9691,659
Most in one year 8,402101
Babies in 2025 1,19151
Estimated living today 224,0001,600
Median age today 3721
Peak year 19891996
Best rank 54th boys1,292nd boys
Rank in 2025 284th2,572nd
First recorded 19241967
Girls / boys 909 / 239,060135 / 1,524

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 Dereks alive today are over 37; half the Derians are over 21. That is 16 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 Derek Derian
England and Wales 5823

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: Derek and Derian.