Humanverse

Manuel vs Manuela

American parents have registered 192,742 Manuels since 1880, against 11,068 Manuelas. Manuel is still ahead, with 860 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Manuel Manuela

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 1899, when Manuel had 97 and Manuela had 25.

Side by side

  Manuel Manuela
Total US births 192,74211,068
Most in one year 2,665202
Babies in 2025 86068
Estimated living today 134,0005,900
Median age today 3643
Peak year 20051924
Best rank 153rd boys488th girls
Rank in 2025 371st2,564th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 1,158 / 191,58411,033 / 35

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 Manuelas alive today are over 43; half the Manuels are over 36. That is 7 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 Manuel Manuela
Spain 59,90812,943
Italy 42,8805,901
France 36,7259,560
Austria 23,8063,984
Switzerland 3,249420
Belgium 623290
England and Wales 533320
Poland 310361
Ireland 4323

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: Manuel and Manuela.