Humanverse

Ericka vs Erik

American parents have registered 158,126 Eriks since 1880, against 23,466 Erickas. Erik is still ahead, with 549 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ericka against Erik, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ericka Erik

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

Erik has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1911 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1971, when Ericka had 910 and Erik had 3,223.

Side by side

  Ericka Erik
Total US births 23,466158,126
Most in one year 9104,959
Babies in 2025 66549
Estimated living today 23,000147,000
Median age today 3937
Peak year 19711980
Best rank 299th girls64th boys
Rank in 2025 2,607th545th
First recorded 19451911
Girls / boys 23,420 / 46665 / 157,461

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 Erickas alive today are over 39; half the Eriks are over 37. 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 Ericka Erik
France 1,3403,120
England and Wales 362,129
Ireland 62312

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: Ericka and Erik.