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Diego vs Diesel

American parents have registered 126,405 Diegos since 1880, against 2,092 Diesels. Diego is still ahead, with 2,356 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Diego Diesel

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

Diego has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1887 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2014, when Diego had 3,176 and Diesel had 156.

Side by side

  Diego Diesel
Total US births 126,4052,092
Most in one year 8,423156
Babies in 2025 2,35659
Estimated living today 124,0002,100
Median age today 1811
Peak year 20062014
Best rank 56th boys1,186th boys
Rank in 2025 158th2,332nd
First recorded 18872001
Girls / boys 245 / 126,1600 / 2,092

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 Diegos alive today are over 18; half the Diesels are over 11. That is 7 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 Diego Diesel
England and Wales 1,867221
Scotland 6911

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: Diego and Diesel.