Humanverse

Freda vs Fredrik

American parents have registered 42,553 Fredas since 1880, against 525 Fredriks. Freda is still ahead, with 17 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Freda against Fredrik, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Freda Fredrik

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

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Freda for 137 years and Fredrik for 9 years. The lead changed hands 8 times.

Side by side

  Freda Fredrik
Total US births 42,553525
Most in one year 1,02528
Babies in 2025 1717
Estimated living today 13,000460
Median age today 7014
Peak year 19182020
Best rank 192nd girls3,734th boys
Rank in 2025 6,546th5,399th
First recorded 18801924
Girls / boys 42,527 / 260 / 525

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 Fredas alive today are over 70; half the Fredriks are over 14. That is 56 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 Freda Fredrik
England and Wales 268378
Ireland 1373
France 805
Scotland 106

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: Freda and Fredrik.