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Lavelle vs Laverne

American parents have registered 56,124 Lavernes since 1880, against 4,069 Lavelles. But in 2025 it was Lavelle that was commoner, 12 babies to 9.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Lavelle against Laverne, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Lavelle Laverne

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 140 years in which either name was published, Laverne for 98 years and Lavelle for 42 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Lavelle Laverne
Total US births 4,06956,124
Most in one year 651,785
Babies in 2025 129
Estimated living today 2,50017,000
Median age today 4272
Peak year 19891924
Best rank 1,516th boys169th girls
Rank in 2025 6,803rd10,107th
First recorded 19031885
Girls / boys 1,588 / 2,48142,878 / 13,246

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 Lavernes alive today are over 72; half the Lavelles are over 42. That is 30 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 Lavelle Laverne
England and Wales 225

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: Lavelle and Laverne.