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Ludovica vs Ludwig

American parents have registered 2,696 Ludwigs since 1880, against 42 Ludovicas. Ludwig is still ahead, with 12 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ludovica against Ludwig, 1880 to 2025 0 25 50 75 100 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ludovica Ludwig

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

Ludwig 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 2022, when Ludovica had 7 and Ludwig had 9.

Side by side

  Ludovica Ludwig
Total US births 422,696
Most in one year 988
Babies in 2025 under 512
Estimated living today 40800
Median age today 450
Peak year 20211916
Best rank 10,292nd girls620th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked6,803rd
First recorded 20151880
Girls / boys 42 / 00 / 2,696

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 Ludwigs alive today are over 50; half the Ludovicas are over 4. That is 46 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 Ludovica Ludwig
France 703,385
Switzerland 19199
England and Wales 5220
Poland 443

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: Ludovica and Ludwig.