Humanverse

Lama vs Lambert

American parents have registered 3,515 Lamberts since 1880, against 522 Lamas. But in 2025 it was Lama that was commoner, 15 babies to 12.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Lama against Lambert, 1880 to 2025 0 25 50 75 100 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Lama Lambert

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, Lambert for 116 years and Lama for 28 years. The lead changed hands 9 times.

Side by side

  Lama Lambert
Total US births 5223,515
Most in one year 1998
Babies in 2025 1512
Estimated living today 5201,300
Median age today 1957
Peak year 20191918
Best rank 6,176th girls620th boys
Rank in 2025 7,133rd6,803rd
First recorded 19781881
Girls / boys 522 / 00 / 3,515

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 Lamberts alive today are over 57; half the Lamas are over 19. That is 38 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 Lama Lambert
France 302,195
England and Wales 763

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: Lama and Lambert.