Humanverse

Francis vs Franziska

American parents have registered 320,322 Francises since 1880, against 200 Franziskas. Francis is still ahead, with 891 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Francis against Franziska, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Francis Franziska

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

Francis 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 2006, when Francis had 512 and Franziska had 12.

Side by side

  Francis Franziska
Total US births 320,322200
Most in one year 7,00012
Babies in 2025 891under 5
Estimated living today 113,000200
Median age today 6327
Peak year 19182006
Best rank 30th boys9,286th girls
Rank in 2025 420thunranked
First recorded 18801963
Girls / boys 29,832 / 290,490200 / 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 Francises alive today are over 63; half the Franziskas are over 27. That is 36 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.

Country Francis Franziska
France 166,35015
England and Wales 6,12319
Switzerland 116263
Poland 774

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: Francis and Franziska.