Humanverse

Judith vs Judson

American parents have registered 455,955 Judiths since 1880, against 13,881 Judsons. Judith is still ahead, with 344 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Judith against Judson, 1880 to 2025 0 8k 16k 24k 32k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Judith Judson

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, Judith for 137 years and Judson for 9 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Judith Judson
Total US births 455,95513,881
Most in one year 25,303282
Babies in 2025 344252
Estimated living today 293,0009,500
Median age today 7526
Peak year 19432023
Best rank 7th girls855th boys
Rank in 2025 788th934th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 454,714 / 1,2410 / 13,881

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 Judiths alive today are over 75; half the Judsons are over 26. That is 49 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 Judith Judson
England and Wales 4793

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: Judith and Judson.