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Jamal vs Jamisen

American parents have registered 33,501 Jamals since 1880, against 584 Jamisens. Jamal is still ahead, with 169 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Jamal against Jamisen, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Jamal Jamisen

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

Jamal has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1946 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2014, when Jamal had 306 and Jamisen had 36.

Side by side

  Jamal Jamisen
Total US births 33,501584
Most in one year 1,25336
Babies in 2025 169under 5
Estimated living today 32,000580
Median age today 3216
Peak year 19932014
Best rank 233rd boys3,617th boys
Rank in 2025 1,196thunranked
First recorded 19461988
Girls / boys 266 / 33,235199 / 385

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 Jamals alive today are over 32; half the Jamisens are over 16. That is 16 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Jamal and Jamisen.