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Francis vs Fraser

American parents have registered 320,322 Francises since 1880, against 551 Frasers. Francis is still ahead, with 891 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Francis Fraser

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 2010, when Francis had 403 and Fraser had 13.

Side by side

  Francis Fraser
Total US births 320,322551
Most in one year 7,00022
Babies in 2025 89116
Estimated living today 113,000420
Median age today 6329
Peak year 19182024
Best rank 30th boys4,571st boys
Rank in 2025 420th5,608th
First recorded 18801915
Girls / boys 29,832 / 290,4900 / 551

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 Frasers are over 29. That is 34 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 Fraser
England and Wales 6,1236,617
Scotland 1,3868,432
Ireland 7,28213
New Zealand 42051
Northern Ireland 32774

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 Fraser.