Humanverse

Fred vs Fredie

American parents have registered 345,684 Freds since 1880, against 1,229 Fredies. Fred is still ahead, with 80 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Fred Fredie

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

Fred 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 2004, when Fred had 161 and Fredie had 5.

Side by side

  Fred Fredie
Total US births 345,6841,229
Most in one year 6,56637
Babies in 2025 80under 5
Estimated living today 97,000410
Median age today 7064
Peak year 19241924
Best rank 32nd boys1,287th boys
Rank in 2025 1,932ndunranked
First recorded 18801900
Girls / boys 2,029 / 343,65540 / 1,189

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 Freds alive today are over 70; half the Fredies are over 64. That is 6 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 Fred Fredie
France 4,3455

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: Fred and Fredie.