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Murad vs Murphy

American parents have registered 13,174 Murphys since 1880, against 1,133 Murads. Murphy is still ahead, with 1,124 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Murad against Murphy, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Murad Murphy

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

Murphy has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1881 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1977, when Murad had 20 and Murphy had 29.

Side by side

  Murad Murphy
Total US births 1,13313,174
Most in one year 561,124
Babies in 2025 451,124
Estimated living today 1,10010,000
Median age today 147
Peak year 20162025
Best rank 2,335th boys754th boys
Rank in 2025 2,798th754th
First recorded 19711881
Girls / boys 0 / 1,1334,688 / 8,486

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 Murads alive today are over 14; half the Murphys are over 7. 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 Murad Murphy
England and Wales 270862
France 80170
Scotland 338
Switzerland 337

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: Murad and Murphy.