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Fleet vs Fletcher

American parents have registered 17,644 Fletchers since 1880, against 166 Fleets. Fletcher is still ahead, with 561 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Fleet against Fletcher, 1880 to 2025 0 150 300 450 600 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Fleet Fletcher

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

Fletcher 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 1885, when Fleet had 6 and Fletcher had 24.

Side by side

  Fleet Fletcher
Total US births 16617,644
Most in one year 11561
Babies in 2025 under 5561
Estimated living today 4012,000
Median age today 7314
Peak year 19302025
Best rank 2,444th boys545th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked545th
First recorded 18851880
Girls / boys 0 / 166225 / 17,419

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 Fleets alive today are over 73; half the Fletchers are over 14. That is 59 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Fleet and Fletcher.