Humanverse

Derek vs Derrin

American parents have registered 239,969 Dereks since 1880, against 678 Derrins. Derek is still ahead, with 1,191 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Derek Derrin

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 1965, when Derek had 1,809 and Derrin had 29.

Side by side

  Derek Derrin
Total US births 239,969678
Most in one year 8,40229
Babies in 2025 1,191under 5
Estimated living today 224,000630
Median age today 3736
Peak year 19891965
Best rank 54th boys1,429th boys
Rank in 2025 284thunranked
First recorded 19241960
Girls / boys 909 / 239,0600 / 678

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.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Derek Derrin
Scotland 5,5803
England and Wales 5824

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 Derrin.