Humanverse

Laren vs Larry

American parents have registered 811,148 Larrys since 1880, against 921 Larens. Larry is still ahead, with 198 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Laren against Larry, 1880 to 2025 0 10k 20k 30k 40k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Laren Larry

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

Larry has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2020, when Laren had 9 and Larry had 273.

Side by side

  Laren Larry
Total US births 921811,148
Most in one year 3635,027
Babies in 2025 under 5198
Estimated living today 800499,000
Median age today 4069
Peak year 19851947
Best rank 3,170th girls10th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,084th
First recorded 19231880
Girls / boys 551 / 3703,560 / 807,588

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 Larrys alive today are over 69; half the Larens are over 40. That is 29 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 Laren Larry
France 101,070
England and Wales 36326

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: Laren and Larry.