Humanverse

Dov vs Dovid

American parents have registered 3,623 Dovs since 1880, against 3,394 Dovids. But in 2025 it was Dovid that was commoner, 167 babies to 123.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Dov against Dovid, 1880 to 2025 0 50 100 150 200 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Dov Dovid

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 75 years in which either name was published, Dov for 50 years and Dovid for 25 years. The lead changed hands 19 times.

13 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Dov Dovid
Total US births 3,6233,394
Most in one year 160167
Babies in 2025 123167
Estimated living today 3,5003,300
Median age today 1412
Peak year 20222025
Best rank 1,228th boys1,212th boys
Rank in 2025 1,451st1,212th
First recorded 19491957
Girls / boys 0 / 3,6230 / 3,394

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 Dovs alive today are over 14; half the Dovids are over 12. 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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Dov Dovid
England and Wales 243249

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: Dov and Dovid.