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Derrell vs Derry

American parents have registered 5,880 Derrells since 1880, against 1,678 Derrys. Derrell is still ahead, with 9 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Derrell against Derry, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Derrell Derry

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 114 years in which either name was published, Derrell for 113 years and Derry for 1 year. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Derrell Derry
Total US births 5,8801,678
Most in one year 13655
Babies in 2025 9under 5
Estimated living today 4,5001,100
Median age today 4260
Peak year 19871957
Best rank 793rd boys1,075th boys
Rank in 2025 8,243rdunranked
First recorded 19091914
Girls / boys 16 / 5,864137 / 1,541

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 Derrys alive today are over 60; half the Derrells are over 42. That is 18 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 Derrell Derry
England and Wales 7255

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: Derrell and Derry.