Humanverse

Harmonie vs Harriet

American parents have registered 90,427 Harriets since 1880, against 2,814 Harmonies. Harriet is still ahead, with 226 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Harmonie against Harriet, 1880 to 2025 0 600 1.2k 1.8k 2.4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Harmonie Harriet

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, Harriet for 135 years and Harmonie for 11 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Harmonie Harriet
Total US births 2,81490,427
Most in one year 1382,395
Babies in 2025 72226
Estimated living today 2,80024,000
Median age today 1274
Peak year 20151921
Best rank 1,580th girls114th girls
Rank in 2025 2,458th1,071st
First recorded 19741880
Girls / boys 2,814 / 090,306 / 121

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 Harriets alive today are over 74; half the Harmonies are over 12. That is 62 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

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.

Country Harmonie Harriet
England and Wales 19825,538
France 2,49580
Belgium 125

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: Harmonie and Harriet.