Humanverse

Judd vs Judy

American parents have registered 384,073 Judys since 1880, against 5,746 Judds. Judy is still ahead, with 105 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Judd against Judy, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Judd Judy

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 144 years in which either name was published, Judy for 140 years and Judd for 4 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Judd Judy
Total US births 5,746384,073
Most in one year 15821,073
Babies in 2025 96105
Estimated living today 4,800265,000
Median age today 4073
Peak year 19701947
Best rank 651st boys14th girls
Rank in 2025 1,699th1,872nd
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 0 / 5,746382,979 / 1,094

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 Judys alive today are over 73; half the Judds are over 40. That is 33 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 Judd Judy
England and Wales 196380
France 15530

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: Judd and Judy.