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Leonard vs Leonardo

American parents have registered 295,746 Leonards since 1880, against 96,207 Leonardos. But in 2025 it was Leonardo that was commoner, 3,789 babies to 438.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Leonard against Leonardo, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Leonard Leonardo

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 146 years in which either name was published, Leonard for 115 years and Leonardo for 31 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Leonard Leonardo
Total US births 295,74696,207
Most in one year 5,6754,433
Babies in 2025 4383,789
Estimated living today 119,00093,000
Median age today 6411
Peak year 19212019
Best rank 39th boys86th boys
Rank in 2025 637th91st
First recorded 18801885
Girls / boys 1,412 / 294,334141 / 96,066

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 Leonards alive today are over 64; half the Leonardos are over 11. That is 53 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 Leonard Leonardo
Italy 905142,729
France 18,8252,880
England and Wales 3,7627,210
Poland 5,992945
Switzerland 1,4783,799
Belgium 706 Léonard770
Ireland 923334
Norway 822308
Scotland 229241
Northern Ireland 1359

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: Leonard and Leonardo.