Humanverse

Murad vs Murray

American parents have registered 22,299 Murrays since 1880, against 1,133 Murads. Murray is still ahead, with 58 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Murad against Murray, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Murad Murray

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

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Murray for 141 years and Murad for 5 years. The lead changed hands 10 times.

Side by side

  Murad Murray
Total US births 1,13322,299
Most in one year 56635
Babies in 2025 4558
Estimated living today 1,1007,100
Median age today 1465
Peak year 20161922
Best rank 2,335th boys206th boys
Rank in 2025 2,798th2,604th
First recorded 19711880
Girls / boys 0 / 1,133391 / 21,908

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 Murrays alive today are over 65; half the Murads are over 14. That is 51 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 Murray
Scotland 33,575
England and Wales 270704
France 805

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 Murray.