Humanverse

Nathalie vs Nathan

American parents have registered 589,271 Nathans since 1880, against 20,673 Nathalies. Nathan is still ahead, with 4,980 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Nathalie against Nathan, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Nathalie Nathan

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

Nathan 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 1929, when Nathalie had 91 and Nathan had 522.

Side by side

  Nathalie Nathan
Total US births 20,673589,271
Most in one year 62914,696
Babies in 2025 1454,980
Estimated living today 18,000540,000
Median age today 2227
Peak year 20092004
Best rank 489th girls20th boys
Rank in 2025 1,478th63rd
First recorded 18811880
Girls / boys 20,667 / 61,774 / 587,497

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 Nathans alive today are over 27; half the Nathalies are over 22. That is 5 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 Nathalie Nathan
France 382,985123,275
England and Wales 40647,388
Belgium 96513,174
Italy 72311,694
Scotland 597,353
Ireland 1176,817
Switzerland 8363,727
Norway 2,246340
Poland 2191,955

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: Nathalie and Nathan.