Dorian vs Dorothee

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Dorian Dorothee

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, Dorian for 99 years and Dorothee for 15 years. The lead changed hands 7 times.

• 1906–1923 Dorothee ahead
• 1924 Dorian ahead
• 1925 Dorothee ahead
• 1926 Dorian ahead
• 1927 Dorothee ahead
• 1928–1929 Dorian ahead
• 1930 Dorothee ahead
• 1931–2025 Dorian ahead

Side by side

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 Dorothees alive today are over 83; half the Dorians are over 24. That is 59 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.

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

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• Dorian vs Doris
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• Dorian vs Dorothea
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• Dorothee vs Dorothy
• Dorothee vs Doris