Humanverse

Laurel vs Laurena

American parents have registered 48,973 Laurels since 1880, against 1,003 Laurenas. Laurel is still ahead, with 372 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Laurel against Laurena, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Laurel 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

Of the 142 years in which either name was published, Laurel for 140 years and Laurena for 2 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Laurel Laurena
Total US births 48,9731,003
Most in one year 1,19716
Babies in 2025 372under 5
Estimated living today 39,000550
Median age today 4951
Peak year 19561920
Best rank 241st girls2,263rd girls
Rank in 2025 734thunranked
First recorded 18831885
Girls / boys 47,113 / 1,8601,003 / 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.

Which name is older

Half of the Laurenas alive today are over 51; half the Laurels are over 49. That is 2 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 Laurel Laurena
France 1201,750
England and Wales 59612

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: Laurel and Laurena.