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Manasseh vs Manuel

American parents have registered 192,742 Manuels since 1880, against 582 Manassehs. Manuel is still ahead, with 860 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Manasseh against Manuel, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Manasseh Manuel

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

Manuel 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 2024, when Manasseh had 30 and Manuel had 958.

Side by side

  Manasseh Manuel
Total US births 582192,742
Most in one year 302,665
Babies in 2025 22860
Estimated living today 570134,000
Median age today 1336
Peak year 20242005
Best rank 3,693rd boys153rd boys
Rank in 2025 4,539th371st
First recorded 19741880
Girls / boys 5 / 5771,158 / 191,584

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 Manuels alive today are over 36; half the Manassehs are over 13. That is 23 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 Manasseh Manuel
France 536,725
England and Wales 71533

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: Manasseh and Manuel.