Humanverse

Dorothea vs Dorrie

American parents have registered 34,427 Dorotheas since 1880, against 889 Dorries. Dorothea is still ahead, with 113 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Dorothea Dorrie

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

Dorothea has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2005, when Dorothea had 14 and Dorrie had 5.

Side by side

  Dorothea Dorrie
Total US births 34,427889
Most in one year 1,11059
Babies in 2025 113under 5
Estimated living today 9,900730
Median age today 6763
Peak year 19201959
Best rank 187th girls1,396th girls
Rank in 2025 1,777thunranked
First recorded 18801917
Girls / boys 34,421 / 6889 / 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 Dorotheas alive today are over 67; half the Dorries are over 63. That is 4 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: Dorothea and Dorrie.