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Devan vs Devlyn

American parents have registered 18,800 Devans since 1880, against 609 Devlyns. Devan is still ahead, with 53 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Devan against Devlyn, 1880 to 2025 0 250 500 750 1k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Devan Devlyn

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

Devan 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 1969, when Devan had 17 and Devlyn had 6.

Side by side

  Devan Devlyn
Total US births 18,800609
Most in one year 95834
Babies in 2025 53under 5
Estimated living today 18,000600
Median age today 2818
Peak year 19942004
Best rank 367th boys4,129th boys
Rank in 2025 2,516thunranked
First recorded 19241969
Girls / boys 5,161 / 13,639268 / 341

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 Devans alive today are over 28; half the Devlyns are over 18. That is 10 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

Country Devan Devlyn
England and Wales 7149

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: Devan and Devlyn.