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Frederick vs Fredrik

American parents have registered 267,165 Fredericks since 1880, against 525 Fredriks. Frederick is still ahead, with 728 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Frederick against Fredrik, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Frederick 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

Frederick 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 2020, when Frederick had 613 and Fredrik had 28.

Side by side

  Frederick Fredrik
Total US births 267,165525
Most in one year 4,99728
Babies in 2025 72817
Estimated living today 132,000460
Median age today 6014
Peak year 19512020
Best rank 78th boys3,734th boys
Rank in 2025 435th5,399th
First recorded 18801924
Girls / boys 1,105 / 266,0600 / 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 Fredericks alive today are over 60; half the Fredriks are over 14. That is 46 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 Frederick Fredrik
England and Wales 20,820378
France 4,8655
Ireland 7093
Scotland 6036
Switzerland 13972

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: Frederick and Fredrik.