Garth vs Garv

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Garth Garv

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 117 years in which either name was published, Garth for 114 years and Garv for 3 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

• 1906–2003 Garth ahead
• 2004–2005 Garv ahead
• 2006–2008 Garth ahead
• 2009 Garv ahead
• 2010–2025 Garth ahead

Side by side

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 Garths alive today are over 55; half the Garvs are over 16. That is 39 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.

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

• Garth vs Gary
• Garth vs Garrett
• Garth vs Garry
• Garth vs Garland
• Garth vs Garret
• Garth vs Garnet
• Garv vs Gary
• Garv vs Garrett