Humanverse

Laura vs Laurena

American parents have registered 804,390 Lauras since 1880, against 1,003 Laurenas. Laura is still ahead, with 805 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Laura against Laurena, 1880 to 2025 0 5k 10k 15k 20k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Laura Laurena

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

Laura 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 1909, when Laura had 1,524 and Laurena had 12.

Side by side

  Laura Laurena
Total US births 804,3901,003
Most in one year 19,00816
Babies in 2025 805under 5
Estimated living today 609,000550
Median age today 5251
Peak year 19641920
Best rank 14th girls2,263rd girls
Rank in 2025 379thunranked
First recorded 18801885
Girls / boys 801,811 / 2,5791,003 / 0

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.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Laura Laurena
France 149,3801,750
England and Wales 23,61612
Ireland 19,10511
Belgium 15,66123

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: Laura and Laurena.