Humanverse

Herculano vs Hernan

American parents have registered 5,230 Hernans since 1880, against 16 Herculanos. Hernan is still ahead, with 72 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Herculano against Hernan, 1880 to 2025 0 50 100 150 200 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Herculano Hernan

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 86 years in which either name was published, Hernan for 85 years and Herculano for 1 year. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Herculano Hernan
Total US births 165,230
Most in one year 11186
Babies in 2025 under 572
Estimated living today 45,000
Median age today 6526
Peak year 19261995
Best rank 2,566th boys785th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked2,056th
First recorded 19261921
Girls / boys 0 / 160 / 5,230

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 Herculanos alive today are over 65; half the Hernans are over 26. 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.

Country Herculano Hernan
France 2525

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: Herculano and Hernan.