Humanverse

Lorraine vs Lorren

American parents have registered 210,845 Lorraines since 1880, against 777 Lorrens. Lorraine is still ahead, with 238 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Lorraine against Lorren, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Lorraine Lorren

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

Lorraine has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1882 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2001, when Lorraine had 126 and Lorren had 20.

Side by side

  Lorraine Lorren
Total US births 210,845777
Most in one year 6,00535
Babies in 2025 238under 5
Estimated living today 92,000570
Median age today 6936
Peak year 19281989
Best rank 39th girls3,402nd girls
Rank in 2025 1,043rdunranked
First recorded 18821915
Girls / boys 209,910 / 935409 / 368

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 Lorraines alive today are over 69; half the Lorrens are over 36. That is 33 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 Lorraine Lorren
France 4,3605
England and Wales 34148

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: Lorraine and Lorren.