Gerald vs Geraldine

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Gerald Geraldine

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, Gerald for 117 years and Geraldine for 29 years. The lead changed hands 16 times.

• 1880–1887 Gerald ahead, apart from one short spell
• 1901–1912 Geraldine ahead
• 1913–1915 Gerald ahead
• 1916–1925 Geraldine ahead
• 1926–2025 Gerald ahead

11 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

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 Geraldines alive today are over 76; half the Geralds are over 67. That is 9 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

• Gerald North Dakota (2.4×), Wisconsin (2.2×), Michigan (2.1×)
• Geraldine Maine (1.8×), Pennsylvania (1.6×), West Virginia (1.6×)

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

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

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• Gerald vs Gertrude
• Gerald vs Gerard
• Gerald vs Gerardo
• Gerald vs Gerry
• Gerald vs German
• Geraldine vs Gertrude
• Geraldine vs Gerard
• Geraldine vs Gerardo