Humanverse

Desi vs Desmond

American parents have registered 40,264 Desmonds since 1880, against 3,395 Desis. Desmond is still ahead, with 839 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Desi against Desmond, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Desi Desmond

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 118 years in which either name was published, Desmond for 114 years and Desi for 4 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Desi Desmond
Total US births 3,39540,264
Most in one year 801,080
Babies in 2025 57839
Estimated living today 3,10038,000
Median age today 3823
Peak year 19701992
Best rank 979th boys264th boys
Rank in 2025 4,539th376th
First recorded 19481904
Girls / boys 1,048 / 2,347233 / 40,031

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 Desis alive today are over 38; half the Desmonds are over 23. That is 15 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Desi and Desmond.