Humanverse

Desmond vs Destanee

American parents have registered 40,264 Desmonds since 1880, against 835 Destanees. Desmond is still ahead, with 839 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Desmond Destanee

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

Desmond has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1904 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2000, when Desmond had 704 and Destanee had 62.

Side by side

  Desmond Destanee
Total US births 40,264835
Most in one year 1,08062
Babies in 2025 839under 5
Estimated living today 38,000820
Median age today 2325
Peak year 19922000
Best rank 264th boys2,457th girls
Rank in 2025 376thunranked
First recorded 19041988
Girls / boys 233 / 40,031835 / 0

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 Destanees alive today are over 25; half the Desmonds are over 23. That is 2 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: Desmond and Destanee.